THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

AND THEN - DUANG! - PART II

But on this one hot Wednesday afternoon, Lady Zhao was feeling crabbier than average. Her manager, in revenge for all kinds of jealousies and perceived slights (there were many, the most recent being a mutual colleague's divorce party – where they ate a whole suckling pig as a metaphor – that Lady Zhao was invited to, and that Lady Zhao was meant to forward on to her manager, but didn't), had tasked her with a tedious online-engagement assignment. She had to scan Weibo feeds and news article comments and activist forums for negative mentions of the company, and then deliver succinct refutations. This was hardly worthy of a multilingual business school graduate, so Lady Zhao felt. And even worse, she had to use her own personal accounts.

"It would sound more genuine, more grass roots, if it came from someone with a real name a face, someone, even, who went to school just a hundred miles from the spill. Which, in a country as big as China, is basically next door."

No, she couldn't use an alias – ECN was certainly not in the business of deceit, not according to its more recent advertising campaigns. And no, there weren't exactly assignment completion criteria Lady Zhao could work towards. She should just continue the task indefinitely, saying sorry whenever her tormentor decided subjectively she wasn't working hard or fast or competently enough.

When her phone rang, though it was an unknown caller, Lady Zhao welcomed the excuse to step away from her desk. It was Bingbing's mother, Mrs. Ruy.