Chapter 17#

Ji Chen looked up with surprise, as if searching the guest’s face and bearing for some trace of a humble origin. He found none.

The handsome face, the exceptional clothes — however you looked at him, this was someone who had been born in Rome.

But the guest moved on from his own story: “So who is it in there that you’re hiding from? A teacher or a classmate, it can’t be.”

He wouldn’t normally have said. But there was something about talking to a stranger that always made it easier to share a secret — and this particular stranger was warm and easy to be around. Ji Chen found the words coming out before he’d decided to say them: “It’s someone who confessed their feelings to me. I turned them down.”

“I see. Were you two just not compatible?”

“We’re too far apart in the world…”

“Far apart how? Are you planning to get married?”

“No — that would never happen.”

The guest smiled slightly. “Well, if it’s only a matter of dating, why worry about family backgrounds? Love starts with two people feeling something and trying it out, doesn’t it? If it doesn’t work, you go your separate ways. If it does, then you sort out the practical questions. You must be around twenty — not thirty or forty, not yet at the stage of needing to think ten steps ahead. Being this young and not daring to take any risks at all — isn’t that a shame?”

There was something undeniably compelling about the way he said it — that particular tone of someone describing eating or drinking, as though it were simply not such a big thing.

Ji Chen felt as though some kind of truth had struck him, and found himself genuinely reflecting.

The guest offered a few more words of encouragement, then shifted the conversation lightly to other things.

The two of them chatted on the balcony, and time passed without either of them noticing how much of it had gone.

As more people began drifting out their way, Ji Chen realized he’d been absent from his post for quite a while. He looked into the banquet hall — Fu Weishan had slipped away at some point without Ji Chen noticing. “Thank you for earlier. I should get back to work.”

The guest smiled and said goodbye, mentioning he wanted to stay outside a little longer.

Once Ji Chen had returned to his position, Fu Jinchi stood for a moment more, set his empty glass to one side with a quiet sound, and remained where he was.

With no one watching, the warmth that had been in his eyes dissolved into something entirely indifferent. The black night sky had turned the balcony windows into a mirror, and in it he could see his own reflection: expression undisturbed, utterly calm, a faint, sardonic curl at the corner of his mouth.

Would Fu Jinchi really be moved to good-naturedly rescue a callow young server from an awkward situation, and stay to talk through his romantic troubles with him?

Categorically not.

In truth, he had already seen Ji Chen once before — the young man moving picture frames in Yinghan’s exhibition hall. Ji Chen simply hadn’t recognized him.

Nor was it possible that Fu Jinchi maintained no informants inside the company, as he had once casually claimed to Yan Zishu. He’d known when the chief assistant got a dressing-down; he was hardly going to miss the CEO’s romantic gossip, which you only had to ask around to uncover.

Fu Weishan was pursuing a broke student? That same one he’d seen before?

And today, that same person had turned up working a shift at the banquet?

Fu Weishan did know how to play his games.

With something this interesting going on, surely an elder brother had a duty to give things a nudge.

*

As for Fu Jinchi’s recent movements, Yan Zishu’s interpretation was this: with the new hotel launch finished, Fu Jinchi presumably had fewer demands on his time, and had resumed making his presence felt in Fu Weishan’s vicinity.

Yan Zishu’s second visit to Golden Phoenix Terrace was as Fu Weishan’s companion for a client meeting and business discussion.

At the table were the client, various business partners, the head of client relations, and a few others there to round out the numbers — and, conspicuously, Fu Jinchi.

The conversation was lively, punctuated by toasts and the usual commerce of mutual flattery and social drinking, the atmosphere agreeably pleasant throughout.

Which meant that no one at the table could tell that the confident, poised Fu Weishan sitting across from them was, internally, as dark as a landscape buried under volcanic ash.

No one except Yan Zishu.

He could even guess with some confidence what Fu Weishan was inwardly cursing: that Fu Jinchi the “restaurateur” was constitutionally incapable of minding his own business.

The particular source of irritation and private gratitude, however, was that Fu Jinchi had this persistent way of leveraging his personal connections to bring genuinely useful contacts to the table.

Yinghan Group’s art industry operation centered on art trading, but beyond the core market it had been developing adjacent service-oriented and cross-sector business models for years, including art investment and art finance services.

For some time, Yinghan had been seeking a cooperative arrangement with Dongyun Bank, one of the established commercial banks — but negotiations over certain business terms had never been resolved, dragging on until the talks were practically at a standstill.

It happened, however, that Fu Jinchi enjoyed a close personal friendship with the youngest son of the current chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Which meant that not just Dongyun Bank, but any bank in the country, would be happy to have an extended conversation with him.

Sure enough, on hearing of this connection, it was Dongyun Bank’s president, Qin Maosheng, who took the initiative — personally organizing a dinner with Fu Weishan.

Qin Maosheng even suggested the venue himself: Fu Jinchi’s hotel.

From the outside, after all, they appeared to be family — the wider world was not privy to the rather intricate relationships at play.

What was Fu Weishan supposed to say to that? Claim the hotel wasn’t a Fu family establishment? Expose the family complications to a business partner?

In Yan Zishu’s private estimation, if Fu Weishan could have had Fu Jinchi’s photograph printed on sheets of A-size paper and handed to the building security with instructions to refuse him entry even if he arrived accompanied by the ruler of heaven himself — this would without question have been the one thing Fu Weishan most wanted to do in the world.

Unfortunately, even if Fu Weishan had wanted it, the board of directors would never have permitted it.

Whatever personal grudges the two brothers had between them, the shareholders cared only about the money landing in their pockets.

When it came to interests, you held your nose and performed fraternal warmth.

This was one area where Fu Jinchi so vastly outperformed Fu Weishan — his skin was simply considerably thicker.

He not only enthusiastically facilitated the Yinghan-Dongyun partnership, but worked the banquet table with such effortless skill that the atmosphere reached a genuine high point.

At the height of the evening, when the project framework had been largely talked through and the conversation was moving toward specifics, Fu Jinchi raised his glass with a smile: “Don’t let the youth fool you — Zishu is a long-serving veteran at Yinghan. I hear he personally led the early groundwork on the financial services portfolio. So experienced, that CEO Fu may well be handing him full charge of this going forward?”

Qin Maosheng, under the impression this was something the two sides had already agreed internally, slapped his considerable belly with a resounding smack: “Is that so? Well, that puts my mind completely at ease! In that case — congratulations to young Yan on the promotion! Ha ha ha ha!”

Yan Zishu was briefly startled, then quickly deflected with rounds of I wouldn’t dare, and smoothly used the moment to raise another toast to Qin Maosheng, tactfully indicating nothing had been formally settled yet.

The client relations director and the others present exchanged subtly surprised looks.

A chief assistant’s role was to participate across the various functions of the company — advising, but not deciding.

As such, Fu Weishan had treated Yan Zishu, fairly naturally, as one treats a first-rate majordomo.

But a chief-assistant position was also generally understood as a transitional post before elevation to vice president. If someone in that role were assigned to lead a major project, what Qin Maosheng had assumed was what most people would have assumed too: it meant the groundwork for a management promotion was being laid.

Was there actually something to this? How had there been no word of it before?

There had been no word of it because Fu Weishan had never once considered it.

And had certainly not expected Fu Jinchi to produce that statement from thin air.

For a moment, even Fu Weishan himself felt a small internal explosion.

But however much he was privately seething at Fu Jinchi’s presumptuous overreach, he could not very well make a scene at the dinner. He offered only a vague, noncommittal response.

The evening, despite all the surface warmth and laughter, and despite the deal being virtually clinched, left Fu Weishan in a bad mood.

As Qin Maosheng made his departure — by this point rather thoroughly drunk — he pumped Yan Zishu’s hand with vigor: “Keep at it, young man! In your youth… you’ve got to put in the hard yards! One day… you’ll have all the money and the house you want! Great doing business with you!”

Yan Zishu smiled helplessly, and joined the client relations director and the others in steering the flushed and boisterous Qin Maosheng toward his waiting car.

Fu Weishan, finally free, narrowed his eyes and leveled a cold warning at Fu Jinchi: “I’d advise you to remember your place. Fu Jinchi — I have been more than tolerant of you. Your reach has been extending rather too far lately.”

“Which of my places?” Fu Jinchi was unruffled. “Do you mean as an Yinghan shareholder?”

Indeed — Fu Jinchi held shares in Yinghan, and was among the larger shareholders. These shares had naturally been transferred to him by Fu Zhizhang before his death. The fact that Fu Weishan’s mother had had him exiled to Hong Kong City had not changed this fundamental fact, nor could it.

Fu Weishan said, through his teeth, with something like a dangerous sound from the throat: “You’d better watch yourself.”

With the full weight of the evening’s frustrations behind him, he was a volcano on the edge of eruption.

Fu Jinchi, however, was a master of the principle that you can’t strike a smiling face — and so, having just prodded first, he abruptly shifted into a conciliatory tone: “Let’s be reasonable about this. Why are you so angry? For what it’s worth, I think it was Director Huang who mentioned to me that Director Yan was handling the preliminary liaison work. That’s what gave me the idea. My mistake.”

Fu Weishan said coldly: “Who asked you to weigh in? Save the commentary. Nobody mistook you for a mute.”

Fu Jinchi said equably: “He is your subordinate, after all. Who you assign the project to really is none of my business. Fair enough — I overstepped. From now on I’ll just stick to my own affairs.”

That throwaway line contained a pointed subtext — as though Fu Jinchi was graciously reminding everyone that he had, despite his personal feelings, facilitated a piece of real business for Yinghan, while Fu Weishan’s huffing and puffing made him look like an adolescent who let personal feelings govern his every decision.

Fu Weishan watched Fu Jinchi’s back as he turned and walked away, and muttered something under his breath along the lines of insufferable showoff.

He was, of course, far from the only person who thought that of Fu Jinchi — he probably didn’t even rank in the first tier. Fu Jinchi, for his part, couldn’t care less, and went on doing exactly as he pleased.

On the ride back, Yan Zishu had drunk a fair amount alongside the clients, so they were driven by the chauffeur.

Fu Weishan, in no great humor, asked: “Fu Jinchi seems to think highly of you this evening. How well do you two know each other?”

Yan Zishu replied without any particular change in expression: “We have some professional dealings.”

Fu Weishan looked at him assessingly. “And you’d like to take charge of the Dongyun partnership project?”

Yan Zishu answered with the same composure: “If the company has that arrangement in mind, I’ll naturally give it everything I have. That said, I wouldn’t consider myself a specialist in this particular field, and I’m sure the executive office could work through the candidate options and identify someone more suitable.”

His tone sounded genuine. Fu Weishan thought it over, and concluded that Fu Jinchi, that old fox, had probably put Yan Zishu’s name forward as much to cause trouble as anything else — stirring the pot rather than meaning what he said. He let the suspicion rest.