mijobooks Chapter 312 Osmanthus
Chapter 312 Osmanthus
(Thanks to "I am Mrs. Yorktown's Dog" for the amazing certification! And thank you to all the readers for your support! Two chapters today~)
1:17 PM.
Chen Zhiyuan sat in his office, holding an unlit Hongtashan cigarette in his hand, staring at the three items laid out in front of him.
His original plan was to prepare a plan and wait for the outcome at the table tomorrow. But he only ate two bites of the boxed lunch from the cafeteria before putting it down. He couldn't get rid of the thorn in his mind—her timing of leaving was too precise.
A willful young lady, whose departure coincided perfectly with the moment when Endo was using the foundation cost to put the pressure on her side the most.
He pushed the lunchbox to the corner of the table, freeing up the entire surface.
The first thing was the soil sample data sheet he pulled from his inner jacket pocket. Endo had left it on the negotiating table.
The second item was an extremely rough sketch he drew on a sticky note with a ballpoint pen—an aerial view of plot B-07, marked "1600m shoreline" on the north side, with a small arrow drawn outside the shoreline and the words "10,000-ton ship draft > 12m" written next to it.
The third thing was a scene that kept replaying in his mind.
On the earthen embankment, the girl raised her hand and pointed to the cargo ship in the distance.
"Can those big ships sail this far?"
Chen Zhiyuan put the Hongtashan cigarette in his mouth, but still didn't light it.
When a wealthy young lady sees a large ship while traveling, her normal reaction is usually, "Wow, it's huge!" or "Wow, it's magnificent!" She takes a picture, shares it with her best friend, and that's it.
She asked, "Can you drive here?"
The key phrase is "from here." It's not "drive right up to me so I can see," but "drive to this location, this stretch of coastline." This is a question about navigation conditions, packaged as a childlike curiosity.
the second.
Picture album.
She opened the Shanghai tourism brochure to the page about the Nine-Turn Bridge. The opposite page was an aerial view of the planned Lujiazui area. She pinched a crease in the corner of the page.
Would a rich heiress with no interest in business leave a mark on a city planning rendering in a travel brochure?
will not.
Unless she cares about what's drawn in that picture.
It could be explained as a personal habit, but Chen Zhiyuan observed that there were no similar creases on other pages in the album.
The third.
whisper.
She walked up to Endo and whispered something. Endo's lips twitched for a moment. Then she turned and left, and Endo immediately called a halt to the meeting.
If the sentence had been "I'm bored, I'm going back to the hotel," Endo wouldn't have reacted so negatively. That level of capriciousness is something the butler has to deal with a dozen times a day.
There is only one instruction that could cause Endo to lose his composure at the negotiating table—it would exceed the negotiation framework he was previously authorized to use.
Three lines.
Channel depth. Lujiazui planning map. New instructions exceeding the established framework.
Chen Zhiyuan took the cigarette out of his mouth and placed it on the edge of the ashtray.
Endo is the shield.
She is the spear.
Once this understanding was established, all the "unreasonable" details from the past two days made sense. The complaints about noise, smell, and crowding weren't genuine; she was creating reasons to steer her research towards where she truly wanted to go.
The A-03 plot was rejected not because of the stinking ditch, but because its location was incorrect.
She wanted to go to B-07 from the very beginning.
Chen Zhiyuan picked up the black rotary dial phone on the table and pulled a business card from the depths of the drawer. The business card read "Ikeda Business Consulting" and included a local number.
The dial pad was moved one space at a time by the fingers, making a crisp clicking sound.
"Mr. Ikeda. I am Chen Zhiyuan."
Ikeda's slightly polite voice came through the receiver.
"Mr. Ikeda, the tea in the conference room this morning wasn't very good; the Longjing tea was over-brewed. I apologize for neglecting Miss." Chen Zhiyuan twirled the phone cord around his index finger. "I'd like to treat Miss to a private meal as an apology. There's a quiet, private restaurant on Yongfu Road in the French Concession at 6:30 tonight; it's not open to the public. I wonder if Miss would do me the honor?"
He paused for a moment.
"It's just a casual meal. We won't discuss business."
……
Peace Hotel. Suite on the eighth floor.
Endo stood at the end of the corridor, holding the message that Ikeda had handed him. He ran his knuckles along the edge of the note a couple of times, then folded it up and tucked it into his notebook.
He knocked on the door of room 814.
"Come in."
The room was dimly lit. The blackout curtains on the French windows were only a third open, allowing a narrow, long beam of afternoon light to cut diagonally across the carpet.
Satsuki sat in an armchair by the window. Seven or eight Polaroid photographs were scattered on the coffee table, face up, arranged in two rows. Her right hand held a freshly ejected photograph, flicked it twice, and placed it at the end of the left column.
The left column shows: abandoned brick kilns, irrigation canal water level, and cross-sections of tidal flat soil.
The right column: a panoramic view of the reed marshes. A 10,000-ton ship on the waterway. The silvery-gray mudflats beneath your feet.
The left side shows the data. The right side shows the assets.
"Miss," Endo stopped by the door, "Director Chen Zhiyuan has invited you to a private dinner tonight. A private restaurant on Yongfu Road in the French Concession. He said—it's just an apology, no official business."
Satsuki stopped.
She didn't look up; her gaze remained fixed on the photograph of the irrigation canal's water level on the coffee table. The highest mark was less than forty centimeters from the canal's edge—meaning the area's surface drainage capacity was extremely poor during the rainy season. The design standards for the park's drainage system had to be significantly raised.
three seconds.
She flipped the photo over and placed it face down on the table.
Tell him I'll go.
Satsuki raised her head and looked at Endo.
"Just bring Fujita. You don't need to come."
Endo's brow furrowed for a moment, then relaxed again.
Not bringing him means tonight's conversation won't be filtered through the "Executive Director" layer. The young lady will face Chen Zhiyuan directly. Alone.
"clear."
Endo bowed slightly and left the room, his right hand lingering on the doorknob for half a second longer.
The door closed.
Satsuki lowered her head and carefully placed the photos on the coffee table into the hidden compartment of her handbag. The last one was a panoramic view of the reed marshes—the withered yellow reeds were pressed into golden waves by the wind, with the gray-blue Yangtze River stretching to the horizon.
She looked at it for two seconds, turned it over, and wrote a line of tiny numbers on the white back with a ballpoint pen.
Then I stuffed it in too.
……
Six o'clock in the evening.
Yongfu Road.
The fallen leaves of the plane trees in the French Concession covered a thin layer of withered yellow, which sanitation workers swept to the curb, piling up into long, strip-like golden ribbons. The streetlights were not yet on, and dusk crept in from the end of the alley, enveloping the entire street in an ambiguous bluish-gray hue.
"Yongfu Courtyard" has no sign. From the outside, it looks like a two-story old Spanish-style house with red tile roof and sloping roof. The wrought iron railings of the second-floor balcony are covered with withered trumpet vines.
Pushing open the black lacquered wooden door and passing through a short path paved with blue bricks, you'll find a small garden. There are three osmanthus trees. The late-blooming osmanthus is still in bloom at the end of September, its delicate golden-yellow blossoms adorning the branches, their sweet fragrance slowly spreading in the cool air.
Chen Zhiyuan sat in the private room.
Today he wore a slightly faded dark gray jacket over a navy blue turtleneck sweater, with a small crease from the washing machine still visible on the left chest.
Three sets of cutlery were set on the table. The chopsticks were made of ebony and rested on a celadon chopstick rest. Instead of Longjing tea, the teapot was filled with Baihao Yinzhen tea—which has a lower bitterness and a long-lasting sweet aftertaste, suitable for those who don't drink alcohol.
At the seat furthest from the window, a small dish was placed to the right of the plate. On the dish was a piece of osmanthus-flavored rice cake that had just been taken out of the steamer, the osmanthus petals on the surface still steaming, like a golden stamp.
Chen Zhiyuan turned the white porcelain teacup in front of him halfway around. A thin layer of water vapor condensed on the cup.
His finger paused on the side of the cup for a moment.
He felt the cool temperature of the porcelain with his fingertips and then withdrew them.
He wasn't sure what he could get out of the young lady tonight. But at least, the stage was set.
No smoking. No alcohol. No spice. Considering the client's preference for sweets, he also specially instructed the kitchen to prepare a local-style osmanthus cake.
Before a hunter enters the forest, he must first find out what kind of grass his prey eats.
6:32.
Two sets of footsteps came from outside the door. One set was light, the other heavy.
The wooden door to the private room was pushed open from the outside.
Satsuki walked in. She had changed into a light gray cashmere cardigan over a white shirt collar, and her hair was still tucked behind her ear with the same pearl hair clip. Her handbag was the same beige lambskin one from the afternoon.
Fujita took a half-step into the room behind her. His gaze swept across the entire room in less than two seconds—the position of the windows, the direction of the exit, the distance between the tables and chairs—then he silently retreated to the corner two steps away from the dining table, crossed his arms in front of his abdomen, and stood with his legs apart.
Chen Zhiyuan stood up.
The waiter carried the first cold dish in through the side door.
Chen Zhiyuan raised his hand and gestured slightly to Gaoyue.
He didn't look at the translator—he didn't bring one with him tonight.
He opened his mouth.
"Good evening, Miss. Thank you for taking the time to come tonight."
After a brief pause, he naturally led his hand to the cold dish that had just been served.
"This is a local Shanghai-style sweet lotus root with osmanthus. The lotus root is at its most tender in autumn. Glutinous rice is stuffed inside and steamed for two hours, then drizzled with osmanthus honey. Please enjoy."
Japanese.
Standard Tokyo pronunciation. Polite wording. Absolutely no errors in verb conjugation. Even the less commonplace expression "two hours" is expressed using the slightly archaic "二刻 (futatoki)" instead of the rigid, textbook translation.
The moment the sound landed, it felt as if the air had been squeezed shut.
Satsuki's eyelashes trembled.
Her gaze shifted from the candied lotus root on the table to Chen Zhiyuan's face, lingering for about a second and a half.
Then her eyes crinkled into a smile.
"oops!"
Satsuki gently clapped her hands in front of her chest.
"So Director Chen can speak Japanese!" Her voice rose slightly at the end, carrying a coquettish tone of surprise at discovering an unexpected gift. "That's wonderful! Your pronunciation is even more accurate than our translator's! If we had known you could speak Japanese, we wouldn't have had to keep dragging that boring translator around like that the other day!"
She laughed without any guard up.
Well, that's not surprising.
Chen Zhiyuan served as the Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo from 1982 to 1986. How could he not speak Japanese?
This person has never worn a mask since day one. He simply chose one mask—"The Director of the Investment Promotion Bureau Who Needs a Translator."
Presumably, the bureau chief listened attentively to those conversations, didn't he?
Tonight, he revealed this trump card.
He wants reciprocity.
He revealed his biggest secret in exchange for something in return from her.
Satsuki sat down by the window. The steam from the sweet osmanthus rice cake brushed against the back of her hand, filling her nostrils with its sweet aroma. She picked up her chopsticks, took a small piece of candied lotus root, and put it in her mouth.
"Mmm—it's so sweet."
Chen Zhiyuan sat down opposite her and slowly poured the Baihao Yinzhen tea into the cup in front of Gaoyue.