**GENE**
Gene didn't call Zhao Xian.
Not the next day. Not the next week. Not even after Chen Lao asked, with surprising casualness, "Have you followed up on any opportunities from that meeting?"
"Not yet," Gene had said, keeping his voice steady.
Chen Lao had smiled. Actually smiled. "Good."
Two weeks passed. Gene threw himself into Chen Lao's training with near-religious intensity. Boundary navigation basics—learning to sense when reality was thin, when dimensions pressed close, when crossing from one world to another was possible. It was harder than dock work. Harder than anything.
His body learned to read space wrong. His brain started processing information it shouldn't be able to process. Twice he threw up from dimensional sickness. Once he passed out mid-session and woke up with Chen Lao standing over him saying, "Better. You lasted thirty seconds longer."
Gene didn't have time to think about Zhao Xian.
Except he thought about her constantly.
Not in the obsessive way from before—not imagining conversations, not building fantasies. But in flashes. The way she'd looked at him when he'd explained the customs pathways. The warmth of her card in his hand. The faint scent of tea and jasmine that had lingered after she left.
The fact that she'd noticed him at all.
Three weeks after the meeting, Gene was reviewing boundary flux reports in a coffee shop near the docks when someone slid into the seat across from him.
Zhao Xian.
Gene's brain short-circuited. She wore Western clothes today—dark jeans, a silk blouse, leather jacket that probably cost more than his rent. Her hair was down, falling past her shoulders. She looked younger. More real.
"You haven't called," she said without preamble.
Gene's mouth went dry. "You said to call if I survived Chen Lao's training. I'm still in the middle of it."
"Most people would have called anyway. Testing the boundaries."
"I don't like wasting people's time."
Something flickered in her expression. Amusement, maybe. "Is that coffee any good?"
Gene looked at his cup—cheap black coffee from a place that catered to dock workers. "Honestly? No."
"Then why drink it?"
"Because it's fuel, not pleasure."
Zhao Xian leaned back, studying him with those dark eyes that seemed to see through skin. "Chen Lao says you're doing well. That you haven't quit despite the dimensional sickness."
"Did he send you to check on me?"
"No. I'm here because I'm curious." She paused. "Your Earth customs documentation saved us nine million RMB last quarter. My father wants to meet you."
Gene's heart stopped. "Your father."
"Zhao Mingwei. Head of the family. Controls transport policy across all twelve territories." Her voice was carefully neutral. "He doesn't meet with people often. When he does, it usually means something."
"Like what?"
"Like you might actually be useful instead of just interesting."
The words should have stung. Instead, Gene felt something settle in his chest. This was business. Clear, defined, safe. Not whatever messy thing he'd been building in his head.
"When?" he asked.
"Friday. Seven PM. Family compound." Zhao Xian stood, smooth and fluid. "Dress well. Not wealthy—you can't pull that off yet. But respectful. And Gene?"
He looked up at her.
"Don't be nervous. My father eats nervous people for breakfast." She smiled slightly. "Be yourself. The version that sat quietly for three months before speaking. That's the person who's interesting."
She walked away before Gene could respond.
The coffee shop felt empty without her. Gene sat there for a long moment, heart racing, before he realized his hands were shaking.
Not from fear. From something else entirely.
-----
**ZHAO XIAN**
Zhao Xian made it two blocks before she stopped walking and leaned against a wall in an alley that smelled like rain and garbage.
Her hands were shaking.
Why were her hands shaking?
She'd just done a simple recruitment conversation. Gene Eu had value—his Earth knowledge was saving the family millions. Her father wanted to meet him. She'd delivered the message. Professional. Clean. Simple.
So why did her pulse feel like she'd been running?
Zhao Xian closed her eyes, breathing slowly. She'd handled high-stakes negotiations since she was sixteen. Managed crises that could have bankrupted the family. Stared down criminal syndicate representatives without flinching.
But sitting across from Gene Eu in that mediocre coffee shop, watching him drink terrible coffee because it was "fuel not pleasure," she'd felt something shift in her chest that had nothing to do with business.
The way he'd looked at her—not hungry, not calculating. Just… direct. Present. Like she was a person, not a prize.
Most men looked at her and saw the Zhao family name. Saw access, power, opportunity. Gene Eu looked at her and saw… what?
Zhao Xian pulled out her phone, stared at it, put it away.
This was stupid. She didn't do this. Didn't get flustered by ambitious climbers who happened to have interesting eyes and say things like "I don't like wasting people's time."
Her assistant called. "Miss Zhao? Your father wants to confirm Friday's meeting."
"Confirmed," Zhao Xian said, her voice steady again. Professional. "Seven PM. Gene Eu will attend."
"Should I prepare the full family introduction protocol?"
Zhao Xian hesitated. Full protocol meant her mother, her uncle, her cousin Wei who oversaw family security. It meant Gene Eu would be surrounded, assessed, potentially torn apart by people who'd been playing power games since before he was born.
"No," she heard herself say. "Just my father. Private meeting."
"Miss Zhao, that's highly unusual for a first—"
"I know what it is. Just my father."
After she hung up, Zhao Xian stood in the alley for another minute, trying to remember the last time she'd made a decision based on instinct rather than strategy.
She couldn't.
Which should have worried her more than it did.
-----
**GENE**
Gene spent four days preparing for Friday.
He researched the Zhao family—four generations of merchant power, transport routes that connected twelve territories, wealth that made his father's Irvine real estate business look like pocket change. Zhao Mingwei had built the current empire from his father's foundation, expanding into territories that most merchants considered too unstable.
But facts weren't preparation. Gene needed to understand the man, not just the
resume.
Thursday night, Chen Lao summoned him.
"You're meeting Zhao Mingwei tomorrow."
"How did you—"
"His daughter told me. Wanted my opinion on whether you were ready." Chen Lao poured tea with hands that never shook despite his age. "I told her you weren't. But that you'd survive anyway."
"That's encouraging."
"It wasn't meant to be." Chen Lao handed him a cup. "Zhao Mingwei will test you. Not obviously. He'll ask questions that seem simple but have layers. He'll watch how you move, how you think, whether you defer or challenge."
"What does he want from me?"
"That's for you to figure out." The old man smiled slightly. "But Gene? Don't try to be impressive. You can't out-merchant a fourth-generation merchant lord. Be useful instead."
Friday came too fast.
Gene wore his best suit—not expensive, but tailored properly thanks to Lin Yue's advice from months ago in Taipei. Dark gray, white shirt, simple tie. He looked like what he was: someone climbing, not someone who'd arrived.
The Zhao family compound occupied an entire block in the French Concession district—or whatever this dimension's version was called. Art deco architecture mixed with technology Gene couldn't identify. Guards everywhere, but subtle. Cameras that probably saw in spectrums humans couldn't process.
Zhao Xian met him at the entrance.
She wore a qipao again—deep red silk with gold embroidery, traditional cut but modern fabric. Her hair was pulled back in a style that would've looked severe on anyone else but made her cheekbones look sharper.
"You're on time," she said. "Good. My father hates lateness."
"I'm usually five minutes early."
"Better." She gestured for him to follow. "We're meeting in his private office. Third floor. No recording devices, no phones, no notes. Whatever you discuss stays between you and him."
They walked through corridors lined with art that was probably priceless—scrolls that might've been centuries old, paintings in styles Gene didn't recognize. Servants moved through the halls like ghosts.
"Nervous?" Zhao Xian asked as they climbed stairs that curved wrong, bending space.
"Terrified."
She almost smiled. "Good. Fear keeps you sharp." At the third-floor landing, she stopped. "Gene."
He looked at her.
They stood close—close enough that he could smell her perfume, something floral but subtle. Close enough to see a small scar above her left eyebrow he'd never noticed before.
"My father is…" Zhao Xian paused, choosing words carefully. "He's brilliant. Dangerous. Fair when it serves him. Cruel when necessary." Her dark eyes held his. "But he respects honesty more than flattery. If you don't know something, say so. If you disagree, explain why. Don't try to be what you think he wants. Just be who you actually are."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want this meeting to go well."
"For the family's benefit?"
Something crossed her face too fast to read. "Yes. For the family."
But her voice hitched on the last word—barely, almost imperceptibly. Gene might have imagined it.
Zhao Xian stepped back, putting professional distance between them. "He's waiting. Good luck."
She walked away, heels clicking on marble, leaving Gene standing outside a door that might change everything.
He took a breath.
Knocked.
"Enter," a voice said from inside.
Gene pushed the door open and walked into whatever came next.
-----
**ZHAO XIAN**
Zhao Xian didn't walk away.
She stood at the end of the corridor, just out of sight, listening to her father's voice greeting Gene Eu.
This was stupid. Unprofessional. She should be downstairs working, not lurking like some anxious schoolgirl waiting to see if her friend passed a test.
But she didn't move.
Because somewhere between that first meeting three months ago and sitting across from him in that terrible coffee shop, Gene Eu had stopped being just another useful contact.
He'd become someone she thought about when she shouldn't.
Someone whose hands shaking slightly when showing her documentation made her chest feel tight.
Someone who drank bad coffee as fuel and told her the truth instead of what she wanted to hear.
Zhao Xian closed her eyes, leaning against the wall.
This was dangerous. Caring about outcomes beyond their business value. Wanting someone to succeed for reasons that had nothing to do with family profit.
Her phone buzzed. Her mother: *Dinner tonight. Your presence required.*
Zhao Xian typed back: *Confirmed.*
Then stood in the corridor for five more minutes, listening to muffled voices through a closed door, before finally forcing herself to leave.
Because she had work to do.
Because personal feelings had no place in merchant family politics.
Because getting attached to ambitious climbers who might fail or flee or die in boundary navigation training was how smart people made stupid mistakes.
But as she walked down the stairs, she caught herself hoping—actually hoping—that Gene Eu would say something interesting enough to make her father smile.
And that scared her more than any business deal ever had.