After the reorganization of the editorial office, the backlog of two weeks' work left the new team gasping for breath. The afternoon tea time was supposed to be leisurely, but half an hour ago, the helmsman of Century Weekly, Mr. Baker, had visited the editorial department from his private office and held a brief meeting with the two section editors. He revealed that Claude Dawling, the magazine division partner, planned to cut Century Weekly's budget allocation for the new year, simply because he worried that the new editorial team might not be able to maintain the quality of output. Upon hearing this, the two section editors were thunderstruck. They immediately abandoned the idea of gradually adapting to the work and demanded that the first issue after the relaunch produce immediate results. They assigned numerous tasks and hard targets: not only to write content but also to create topics for discussion in advance. So now, colleagues in the editorial office kept shaking black tea into their personal teapots, brewing it strong, pouring it into cups, and adding honey repeatedly. There was no choice—the temporary workload that afternoon was simply too heavy; they had to stay alert.
Jenny's desk was in the row closest to the door, at the spot nearest to Frank's office cubicle. The desk was made of walnut, its surface wide enough to dance on, with Neoclassical carvings straight and square on the four corners, spacious enough for an entire editorial team to share. In one afternoon, she had spread out her various writing materials on the desk and brought over some past accepted manuscripts from the archives to study. Diagonally across from her sat Frank's two clerks, Fujena and Cowens, located near Frank's cubicle. They were currently rushing to polish a report for the section editor that needed to be submitted to the executive editor. Mr. Alpha had already ordered Frank to have the two clerks revise the report for the third time. They looked utterly miserable but pretended they could still handle it.
Across from Jenny, Polly was typing up the five manuscripts that Mr. Blair had reviewed. He had selected two and had Polly produce clean copies for Mr. Eliot to look over. After Mr. Eliot read them, he kept only one and decided to purchase it, asking Blair to polish and revise it to his satisfaction in advance. Blair had delegated the task to Polly, but after four revisions, she still couldn't get the editor's approval. She did not force herself to appear calm; her face was ashen, looking as if she might open the window and jump out at any moment.
However, Mr. Eliot was equally strict with himself. The famous author he had written to had replied that afternoon, sending along a sample of his manuscript. Mr. Eliot was now anxiously revising the passages himself, busy at his desk in the outer office, not even having time for a glass of water. Even when Mr. Alpha, the section editor, passed by and saw him like this, he wisely didn't disturb him, and no one else dared to breathe loudly. With only a week left before Century Weekly's relaunch, the bosses in the office were eager to prove to the partners and the public in the first issue after relaunch that their abilities were no less than their predecessors'. The new season was about to begin, and the magazine division partner, Mr. Claude Dawling, would soon reallocate resources among the division's seven publications. Whether the budget would be cut directly affected the benefits of every person in the editorial office. It was a chain reaction from top to bottom, eventually determining whether each clerk could afford a vacation this summer. This tension caused all the clerks to suffer collectively. The entire public office area was shrouded in gloom and lightning, and Jenny was afraid she might get struck by lightning.
The submission processing work she had been assigned was a numb physical task—once done, it was done, with no need for repeated rewrites. Jenny was grateful for her choice, but she didn't dare show that she was idle now. She had to keep meticulously analyzing the stories in the archives. She opened her notebook, secretly flipped to a middle page that was seemingly unrelated, and copied down her analysis notes.
Just as she was enthusiastically dissecting the opening of a long mystery novel, a hand suddenly knocked on her desk. She turned her face and looked up to see Frank's face right in front of her. He was quite tall, now slightly bending down to look at the contents of her notebook. His face usually looked delicate, but now it mostly showed exhaustion. Frank averted his gaze from the notebook, took a pass from his coat pocket, and handed it to her. Jenny had no idea how he had precisely spotted her slacking off in the crowd. She asked respectfully, "Is there something?" "I'll be writing a column for Mr. Alpha later. Go upstairs and fetch some materials for me..." With that, Frank also handed her a list of required materials. Jenny had no choice but to nod, close her notebook, put it in her pocket, and take the pass and the list.
At Dawling, anyone could enter the editorial department with an appointment, but the archive room was strictly managed. Without a pass granting permission, the doorman wouldn't let anyone in to retrieve materials, after all, these cultural assets were the most important things for a publishing company. Jenny poked her head out of the stairwell and looked toward the most prestigious literary editorial department of Dawling Publishing Company. The archive room there housed many rare editions and posthumous works, as well as a large number of manuscripts by famous authors that the company had not yet published, plus various detailed publication records and work files. The column Frank was to write was timed for the anniversary of a famous writer's death; he was to review the writer's career. Jenny went to Archive Room No. 4 across from the editorial department, handed the pass to the doorman, explained the situation, and said she was there on behalf of the secretary. The doorman nodded and had her sign the register. "Go in quietly, there's someone..." Jenny sidled into the storeroom without clearly hearing what the doorman said about who was inside. As her future self would tell her, this was the biggest regret of her life.
Stepping inside, the storeroom was spacious, stretching out of sight. There were over a dozen rows of bookshelves, with all materials stored in file boxes. Following the list's instructions, Jenny slowly searched. It seemed there were other colleagues also looking for materials. In the afternoon, the Manhattan sky was a thick leaden gray, and translucent snowflakes drifted outside the window. The room was dim, with only dust floating in the air, somewhat oppressive. Jenny found the fourth row of cabinets according to the document, and spotted the needed files—they sat quietly in the box on the highest shelf. She reached out and tried; her fingertips could just touch it. So she stretched, using her finger pads to pry the box outward. But the box was heavier than she had expected, and the corner seemed caught on something, requiring a harder pull. Just as her fingers cramped, the box suddenly jolted, fell toward her. Jenny instinctively ducked to protect her face, retreating, her back heavily hitting something. A hand reached out from behind and pushed the box back into place.
Jenny froze for a moment, letting her notebook slip from her pocket and scatter on the floor. She turned around and saw a face she recognized. She quickly stepped back, blushing with embarrassment, and apologized hurriedly: "Mr. Rog? I'm so sorry, terribly sorry."
The man she called Rog had initially intended to nod and leave, but upon hearing what she called him, he showed a hint of confusion. Why would she think he was Benjamin Rog? Did he know this person? Zweit looked at her, his gaze focusing on her chin. He didn't want to leave a question unanswered, so his excellent memory began to rewind. The original question wasn't resolved by his memory, but it fixed on a scene a few days ago in the printing department corridor. At that time, through the window came the dim yellow light of gas lamps, the strong smell of ink, the roar of machinery, and snow drifting in the courtyard. A pretty female employee was being harassed. He had passed by and stopped it. Then she had stood there with her head down, tightly pinching her fingers, her defeated face composed, paying the price for the embarrassment of her impulsive words. At that time, he thought that although the people in this family were beyond redemption and would pick anyone, the office at least had some standards. But now, it seemed that something was wrong there too—everything was rotting inside and out. Someone who could almost get herself crushed by a box while looking for a file—what could she possibly do?
Zweit took a half step back, his leather shoe suddenly kicking something. He hadn't planned to pick it up, but he looked down and glimpsed the handwriting on it. "Century Weekly." Next to it were dense annotations. Jenny kept her head down, her gaze on the floor, watching him silently turn, his coattails swinging as he strode toward the door. Only then did she pick up her notebook from the ground. If her feeling was correct, Benjamin Rog had just given her another faint, appraising glance. Jenny looked blankly toward the archive room door, which opened and closed again as he left.
Having adjusted to the weight of the box and the dimensions of the cabinet, she smoothly retrieved it from the high shelf this time. She found the large stack of documents she needed and hurried back to the editorial office. Inside the editorial office, Polly was standing in front of Mr. Eliot's desk, being scolded. "I told you to polish the third version, and this is how you do it? You just handed me the first version? If you don't want to work, you can leave right now." Polly, trembling, quickly replaced it with the correct version. "I didn't mean to; I just mixed them up by mistake." Such mistakes only happened when one's mind was dizzy. Mr. Eliot opened the new version with displeasure, utterly disappointed in Polly. "This is far from enough. My requirements were already clear: preserve the plot elements, but flesh out the character motivations, preferably add psychological description, make the story's environmental background and main emotional conflict progress more coherently—don't let the character's actions create a sense of disconnection for the reader. Have you even read the story seriously? Can't you understand even that?" Polly wiped away tears, trembling like a leaf, took the manuscript, and continued revising.
Jenny slowed her pace. She could feel that around the furious Mr. Eliot, even passing mosquitoes would have to tuck in their wings. She delivered the retrieved documents into Frank's office. Frank held a steel-nibbed pen between his fingers, staring down at the half-written manuscript. He looked up and gestured toward the door, his tone matter-of-fact. "Jenny, it looks like this is your chance to shine."