It was early December when I got the call. Andi and I were in line at a local coffee shop, waiting to get some warm mochas and chocolate chip cookies to enjoy when my phone vibrated, flashing with an unknown number.

“Wei?” I answered, cupping my hand around the mouthpiece in order to be heard over the music blasting from the speakers.

“Hello, this is Gu Jingdan from Changjiang Literature and Arts Publishing House. May I speak to Miss Lin?”

“This…is she…?” I answered, confused.

“Who is it?” Andi whispered at me.

“Publishing house?” I muttered back, shrugging.

“Ah, Miss Lin, it’s nice to meet you. We were very impressed with the partial manuscript that you send last month and would like to arrange a meeting to discuss a possible contract with our company upon completion of the project.”

“Manuscript?” I repeated, confused. “I never sent in a -”

Suddenly, Andi snatched the phone out of my hand. She quickly abandoned our spot in the line, and moved to a quiet booth near the back of the shop.

“Hey! What-”

“Hello, this is Zeng Andi, Lin Yejing’s legal advisor,” she answered, snapping into full-on lawyer mode. “Any contracting or legal matters should go through me directly”

What the actually hell was going on?

Andi left her contact information, and hung up, returning my phone to me excitedly.

“Oh my god Yejing! It’s happening!” She gushed, jumping into the air.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?” I asked, annoyed.

“Um…I sent…I sent a copy of Fiction and Fact to them a few weeks ago,” she admitted, looking around guiltily.

“What?!”

“I can’t let you become a doctor, Yejing! You’re going to hate your life if you go to med school,” Andi said. Then, she hugged me. “Mrs. Gu wants to fly you out to Hubei for a meeting to discuss publishing Fiction and Fact. Do you understand? Publishing it. For the whole world to read!”

“Only those who can read Chinese,” I mumbled.

Andi frowned at me. “Don’t give me that attitude, Yejing. You’re so talented, and you deserve to be recognized for it.”

For a moment, I imagined myself, as a published author, signing autographs in bookstores. It was going to be glorious.

Then, reality smacked me in the face. “I can’t go. My dad will never let me,” I groaned.

Andi quickly shook her head.  “Your dad doesn’t need to know. Okay, we have winter break in a few weeks, right? I’ll invite you up to Dalian. We’ll just make a detour first to Hubei first.”

“He’s going to kill me.”

“Look, what your dad doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Andi decided, dragging me back to the end of the line. “If the meeting works out, he can’t ban you from publishing a book, can he? And if it doesn’t, then no harm done.”

Yeah, no harm done, except my hopes and dreams being crushed.

But Andi was right. I was so close to starting medical school, and even the thought of that made me nauseous.

“Let’s do it.”

Changjiang Literature and Arts Publishing House in Hubei was situated on the top floor of a fifteen story business building. The elevator was open on one side, and gave a terrifying view of the city as Andi and I were taken up straight to the office of Gu Jingdan by her personal assistant. It turned out that Mrs. Gu wasn’t just a representative of the company; she was the president of the company.

Andi was dressed professionally, and even had her hair up in what she liked to call her “lawyer bun.” She seemed way too excited about getting real life experience to add to her resume, but I humored her.

President Gu was dressed in a polished designer blazer and pencil skirt, and looked up in surprise as we entered and sat down across from her.

“Well, it’s certainly very nice to meet you, Miss Lin,” she said, shaking my hand. “And you must be Miss Zeng. You are both Qinghua students, am I right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Andi replied, nodding.

“Well, we are interesting in – no – we want to obtain the publish