Page 99 of From Beijing, With Love

“Yes?” Yang looked back, ready for another directive.

“Good work,” Dr. Sun said before closing the office door, leaving Yang in the hallway by himself, dazed.

There was a trail of white footprints on the gray epoxy floor leading up to Yang’s workstation. He lifted the plastic sheet covering the workbench, releasing a layer of fine dust into the air where the exposed wiring hung. Checking his experimental rig piece by piece, he was relieved that everything looked to be in working order.

He hated that he was locked out of the lab for another week. He was determined to make the last year of his PhD his. He was even looking forward to the twelve-hour days. Maybe then he wouldn’t have the bandwidth to miss Daniel—the first person he’d wanted to call after his conversation with Dr. Sun.

With a wet paper towel, he busied himself by wiping down his station. When his hand bumped into the computer mouse, the machine whirled out of its stupor.

Odd. He was sure he’d turned it off before the lab closure.

The log-on screen beckoned him. His hand hovered over the keyboard for a moment before he entered the generic lab admin credential.

His paper appeared on the screen.

His pulse ticked faster as he scrolled through the document. It was the butchered version with the missing information like a horrible case of déjà vu. But why—

Before he could interrogate it further, the sound of shattering glass rang out from the other end of the L-shaped lab, followed by raised voices.

Yang jogged around the corner, passing empty workbenches and half-filled bags of trash. Jack sat on a stool by his workbench, his shoulders hunched and his hands on his knees. Beside him, Meiwen stood in a white crop top and baggy jeans, her arms crossed. Glass shards that were once a beaker littered the ground by her feet.

“Everything okay?” Yang asked, unsure what he had just intruded on. Then he saw Meiwen’s tear-streaked face. Protectiveness surged through him. Wrapping an arm around Meiwen’s slender shoulders, he made her look at him. “What happened?”

“We just broke up,” Meiwen said as a tear rolled down her round cheek.

“Come on!” Jack threw his arms up. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s just a year, then you’ll join me in Shanghai.”

“Shanghai?” Yang turned to Jack. At Meiwen’s party, Jack had said he was going after the same postdoc position. In fact, Yang was almost certain the other proposal Dr. Sun was passing to the department chair was Jack’s.

“Shh,” Jack hissed as he threw a furtive glance at the lab door. “I didn’t tell Dr. Sun yet. You know what he thinks about people going for industry jobs. I didn’t want to piss him off before my defense.”

“So you pretended to be interested in the postdoc?” Yang asked, not bothering to hide the harsh edge in his voice.

“What’s the problem?” Jack met his eyes, defiant. “I put in the work for the proposal like everyone else. I’ll just back out after my defense and you can have it, all right?”

“Right, then you can start your little job in Shanghai,” Meiwen said bitterly.

“Baby, come on,” Jack pleaded as he took her hand. “I’ll visit every weekend. After you graduate next September, you can join me. We’ll get married, have kids, follow your whole timeline thing. Whatever you want.”

“I want to be in Beijing,” Meiwen whined, but she let Jack hold her hand.

Yang had no interest in being in the middle of another couple’s fight. Jack and Meiwen would figure it out. They always did.

But as he turned to leave, he caught sight of Jack’s sneakers—the white paint glaring against the black leather.

You said no one had been in the lab for weeks, but Jack was. Daniel’s words on the train popped into Yang’s head, together with the trail of white footprints on the gray epoxy floor leading to his station.

Suddenly, the whole lab seemed to reek of paint and varnish, giving him a splitting headache. It made sense while making no sense at all.

“Why did you do it?” Yang asked, looking at Jack. “I don’t understand. You don’t even want the postdoc position.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jack asked, his tone clipped. “Look, we are in the middle of—”

“Two weeks ago, someone updated my thermotaxis paper from the lab computer while the lab was closed for renovation.” Yang pointed in the direction of his workbench. “And by updated, I mean deleted half of it, all while I was preparing it for submission.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Jack huffed, then he followed Yang’s gaze down to his shoes. He crossed his arms. “This? I came in to talk to Dr. Sun about my dissertation. That was all. Ask Meiwen, she was—”

Jack stopped himself and grew quiet, his jaw twitching, his eyes trained on Meiwen.