The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruiyan Xu

Author:Ruiyan Xu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Meiling walks into the private banquet room at the restaurant a different woman: at ease, unafraid, full of bravado, clothed in silk and perfume, shrouded by charm. She inhales the cloud of smoke and smiles in pleasure. She orders two bottles of the most expensive wine at the restaurant. When she greets Mr. Xu she smiles coyly but shakes his hand hard. Two of his associates rise at once, bowing to her, and she nods and stands there, waiting, showing off her legs, until one of them pulls out her chair.

Strange, how she can leave that wreck of a scene back at the apartment behind her, how she forgets about Li Jing and Professor Li and even Pang Pang, locking them away to focus on the task at hand as easily as pressing a button on the remote to change the channel. Mr. Xu is a small, gruff man in his fifties. When he looks at her she can see his suspicion of her youth and her sex. It makes her want to laugh. She is determined to win him over now. She never did take well to being underestimated, and she always did like a challenge.

“I don’t mind telling you this,” Mr. Xu begins without preamble. “Why not lay it all on the table? One of the guys at your company— Zhang Qing—called my vice president last week. He told us that things at SinoVenture are a mess. That Li Jing’s as good as finished. That he’s starting his own fund, and we should pull out and go in with him.”

She fills everyone’s wine glasses with steady hands. “Yes, I’d heard that Xiao Zhang has been trying to stir things up,” she says. “But let’s get to that in a minute. Let’s drink a toast first, shall we? To the future of SinoVenture and the future of Eastern Star. May they both glow brightly and grow prosperous.”

She takes a long sip of her drink and waits until all eyes are on her. “Mr. Xu, did you know that twelve of our fourteen funds are up more than 3 percent just in the last two weeks? That’s about $150,000 for Eastern Star, and it happened, as I’m sure you know, during a time when the market was off by more than 5 percent.”

“Well, that’s just to make up for the money you lost last month,” he grumbles, but his eyes dart to her face, alert now, interested.

“Of course, if you pull out of SinoVenture now, and join up with Xiao Zhang, it’s possible that you’ll get the same type of returns. Possible, but not terribly likely. Xiao Zhang is a very ambitious young man, but he’s still terribly green. Let’s be honest, he doesn’t have a company or a reputation, so he would essentially be gambling your money with nothing to lose. We, on the other hand, are playing with our reputation and the shirts off our backs. And believe me when I say that we definitely want to hold on to our shirts, and our clients as well.

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