Upon Johnson's invitation, Allen Zhang took his seat and immediately, the qipao-clad waitress next to him opened a bottle of wine and poured him a glass of white liquor.
He tasted it, and it wasn't bad.
In what followed, both parties also engaged in some small talk, discussing the current situation and trivial matters in their lives, but they essentially skirted around sensitive topics on mutual understanding.
Johnson also did not inquire why an Asian like Allen Zhang would have a name such as Hanberger Juan Jin.
After several rounds of drinks, Johnson steered the conversation towards the main subject, asking, "I heard that Mr. Jin's Hanberger Foundation acquired an estate in a small town and invested in an underground resource engineering project, extracting oil worth hundreds of millions of US dollars?"
"It's just good luck." Allen Zhang smiled. "Strangely enough, I've only just begun extracting oil today. How did you, Mr. Counselor, come to know about this?"
