Silence lasted for about five seconds.
The scent of sweet osmanthus drifted in through the half-open wooden window, cloyingly sweet. In the corner, the second hand of the grandfather clock ticked past one notch, then another.
Chen Zhiyuan was the first to speak.
"Eldest Miss, forgive my presumption—"
His Japanese phrasing shifted from the polite "desu/masu" form to the shorter, more direct plain form.
"Mr. Endo is your blade. He is not your brain."
After those words were thrown out, the air density in the private room seemed to shift once more.
Satsuki neither denied nor admitted it.
She pushed the half-eaten crème caramel dish in front of her to the edge of the table, lightly flicking the rim with her finger. The dish spun a quarter-turn and stopped.
"Director Chen spent four years in Tokyo." Her voice wasn't loud, and her delivery was clean.
"The window of the Economic and Commercial Section faces south. Across the moat of the Imperial Palace, you can see that row of office buildings in Marunouchi."
She raised her eyes.
"Having stayed for four years, you must have seen many decision-making structures of Japanese zaibatsu."
Chen Zhiyuan's hand holding the teacup paused for a beat.
She knew about his time stationed in Japan—this wasn't surprising. Under the current international situation, anyone who could produce one hundred million US dollars in cash… he would believe it even if someone said the Japanese Prime Minister was controlled by the Saionji family.
A corner of his hand had been exposed by her.
Chen Zhiyuan gently set the teacup back on the table.
"Then those photos that the Eldest Miss took on the B-07 embankment—" He did not dwell on the topic of his time in Japan, skipping directly to the next square. "Were they for Mr. Endo to see, or for yourself?"
Satsuki opened her handbag, pulled out several Polaroids from a hidden compartment, and arranged them in two columns on the coffee table.
Her movements were neither fast nor slow.
Left column: An abandoned brick kiln. The water level line of the irrigation canal. A cross-section of the mudflat soil layers.
Right column: A panoramic view of the reed marshes. A ten-thousand-ton vessel in the shipping channel. The silver-gray mud surface of the mudflat.
"What I showed Endo was the right side." Her index finger tapped the photo of the reed marshes. "Good scenery, open shoreline, suitable for putting into the inspection report for the board of directors."
Her finger moved to the left column.
"What I kept for myself are these."
The water level line of the irrigation canal. The maximum water level was less than forty centimeters from the canal's edge.
The soil cross-section. Beneath twenty centimeters of humus was gray-blue silty clay, with water content visually exceeding the limit.
Chen Zhiyuan stared at the photo of the irrigation canal for two seconds.
A wealthy Eldest Miss visiting for tourism, taking photos of the water level markings of an irrigation canal.
"Eighteen thousand is too low. Forty-five thousand is too high."
Satsuki put the photos back into her handbag and zipped up the hidden compartment.
"Neither of these two numbers is important."
She picked up the silver spoon, its handle lightly tapping the table.
"What is important is—Director Chen, how much do you think those wasteland areas around B-07 will be worth in five years?"
Chen Zhiyuan's lips parted slightly, but he made no sound.
Satsuki spoke for him.
"If we build the roads, construct the docks, lay the power lines, and pipe the water—five years from now, those reed marshes right next to the park will at least quintuple in value per mu."
She looked at him.
"This is a calculation that Director Chen already ran in his office last night."
Chen Zhiyuan's fingers tightened slightly on his knees.
Could a spy have slipped in... I need to let the comrades over there know.
"The Eldest Miss calculates shrewdly." Chen Zhiyuan leaned forward two centimeters, resting his elbows on the edge of the table.
"But the land that quintuples in value is ours. You build the roads, you construct the docks, you spend the money—and in the end, the appreciating land plots are all in our hands."
He spread his hands.
"Aren't you still the ones taking a loss?"
Satsuki picked up her teacup and took a sip of Baihao Yinzhen.
"If I only invest in B-07—"
She set the teacup down.
"Then it would indeed be a loss."
Then she fell silent.
The silver spoon rested on the edge of the dish, caramel crumbs clinging to its surface, reflecting the warm yellow light. The three golden osmanthus trees in the courtyard swayed gently in the night breeze, dropping a few tiny petals onto the windowsill.
Chen Zhiyuan waited for three seconds. Four seconds. Five seconds.
His fingers tapped unconsciously twice on the edge of the table.
"Does the Eldest Miss mean—B-07 is not the end?"
Satsuki didn't answer directly.
She turned her head, casting her gaze toward the small courtyard illuminated by the wall lamp outside the window.
"Director Chen, I was flipping through that picture book in the meeting room this afternoon. I paused on one page for a long time."
She withdrew her gaze.
"You saw it."
It wasn't a question.
Chen Zhiyuan straightened his spine against the back of his chair by another inch.
"Lujiazui."
He uttered those three words.
Satsuki's expression remained unchanged.
She pulled the last Polaroid out of the hidden compartment of her handbag—the panoramic view of the reed marshes.
The white back was facing up.
When the photo paper was turned over, the light revealed a line of tiny handwriting on the back. It was written in ballpoint pen, the strokes thin, but the numbers clear.
She pushed the photo paper to the center of the table.
Chen Zhiyuan looked down.
His hand holding the teacup hung suspended in mid-air.
He didn't move for three seconds.
Due to an extremely slight tremor in his wrist, the water's surface in the teacup rippled in a barely visible circle.
He placed the teacup back on the table.
"Eldest Miss." His voice dropped half an octave, his Adam's apple bobbing. "This number—is it the total bid for B-07 plus Lujiazui?"
"It is not a bid."
Satsuki tapped the number with the tip of the silver spoon. The metal of the spoon tip made contact with the surface of the photo paper, emitting a very soft tap.
"It is the total investment."
She withdrew the silver spoon and rested it on the edge of the dish.
"The 520-mu (34.67 hectares) industrial park of B-07, plus a modern financial and trade skyscraper of no less than four hundred meters at the core location of Lujiazui."
She spoke at a measured pace, pronouncing every word clearly.
"The total investment framework committed by the Saionji Group."
A beat of pause.
"All in US dollar cash remittances."
Chen Zhiyuan's first reaction was not excitement.
His upper body leaned back an inch against the chair's backrest. It was only when his spine pressed against the wooden frame of the backrest that he realized he was retreating.
A four-hundred-meter supertall skyscraper.
"Eldest Miss, frankly speaking." He withdrew his hands from the table and clasped his fingers in front of his abdomen—a defensive posture he might not have even noticed himself.
"The Lujiazui Development Company was only officially established this month. The skyline concept is still a blank slate; they haven't even decided how the specific plots will be divided or how investment will be attracted."
He looked at the seemingly non-threatening face opposite him. The light cast from the side threw a soft, small shadow beneath her cheekbone.
"Why did you set your sights on that location?"
This was the sharpest question of the night. It was practically equivalent to asking: just how deep has your intelligence network penetrated?
Satsuki did not evade.
"Because we did the exact same thing in Tokyo."
"Tokyo's waterfront subcenter, which is Odaiba. It was also a wasteland created by land reclamation—no roads, no bridges, nothing."
"Now, we, Saionji, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government are pouring trillions of yen into it. The piers of the Rainbow Bridge have already been driven into Tokyo Bay, and the plans for the first batch of office buildings in the core area are all on our desks. We are drawing a new city from scratch, right at Tokyo's doorstep."
She drew a line on the table with her index finger.
Starting from the right edge of the table, extending to the left, passing the teapot, passing the dish with the sweet osmanthus sugar rice cakes, all the way to the far left edge of the table.
"Pudong and Odaiba have almost the same starting point." Her finger stopped at the far left of the table. "There is only one difference."
She raised her finger.
"Odaiba's hinterland is Japan, with a population of 120 million."
She withdrew her hand and placed it on her lap.
"Pudong's hinterland is the 400 million people of the entire Yangtze River basin."
Chen Zhiyuan's clasped fingers tightened.
The crux of this statement did not lie in the numbers.
Anyone could look up the numbers—the 400 million population was public data from the national statistical yearbook.
The crux lay in the words "Yangtze River basin."
In public statements, the development of Pudong was a "major initiative for the economic development of Shanghai."
But in the internal feasibility study report submitted to the State Council, the exact words of the core argument were—"relying on Shanghai, serving the Yangtze River basin, and facing the Pacific Ocean."
This report explicitly positioned Pudong as a strategic fulcrum radiating across the entire Yangtze River economic hinterland, rather than merely a development zone for Shanghai alone.
Yet, this implication had never appeared in any public documents or press releases. The circulation of that feasibility report was limited to no more than fifty people.
He stared at Satsuki for over ten seconds.
Her expression was completely tranquil, like a pool of autumn water.
Chen Zhiyuan turned the Polaroid over. The front showed the reed marshes. The withered yellow reed heads were pressed by the wind into golden waves, ending at the gray-blue band of the Yangtze River.
He flipped it back to the reverse side. The number. The question mark.
"If you are interested in Lujiazui," he said, "why not talk directly with the municipal government?"
He twirled the photo paper between his fingers.
"Why go through such a massive detour via B-07?"
"Because today's Lujiazui is not worth this price."
Satsuki's response was almost instantaneous.
"But it will be in three years."
She tapped twice on the table with two fingers.
"I need the identity of a 'builder who has already taken root in Pudong.' With this label, the Lujiazui card table will reserve a seat for me in the future."
She looked at the photo paper in Chen Zhiyuan's hand.
"B-07 is the admission ticket."
Chen Zhiyuan spun the photo paper another half-turn between his fingers. The image of the reed marshes on the front and the number on the back flashed alternately.
He didn't reply immediately.
In the garden outside the private room, a gust of night wind swept through the canopy of the sweet osmanthus trees, the rustling of branches and leaves sounding like someone flipping through a book.
"By the way."
Satsuki picked up her teacup, her tone suddenly relaxing, as if casually bringing up an irrelevant matter at the dinner table.
"Has Director Chen heard of Mori Building? A real estate developer in Tokyo."
Chen Zhiyuan's eyelid twitched. The movement was extremely subtle.
"Their president, Mori Minoru, has been researching the feasibility of supertall buildings in major Asian cities for the past two years." Satsuki stirred the tea soup in her cup with the handle of her spoon. "I heard Shanghai is also on his list."
She took a sip and set the cup down.
"However, he moves slowly. According to his habits, it will be at least two or three years before he formally sends people to contact you."
After she finished speaking, her brow furrowed slightly, as if she had suddenly realized her mouth had run ahead of her brain.
"...This isn't important. Forget I said it."
One by one, Chen Zhiyuan's five fingers gripping the teacup loosened, and then one by one, they tightened back up.
Forget I said it.
Three years. A two-to-three-year window of opportunity.
He slipped the Polaroid into the inner pocket of his jacket.
"Eldest Miss." He looked at Satsuki. "The scale of this matter has already exceeded my personal authority."
Satsuki nodded, her expression composed.
"I know. That's why tonight is just a private dinner between you and me." One by one, she returned the silver spoon, dish, and napkin on the table to their original places, her movements possessing an almost ritualistic neatness. "There are no meeting minutes, and no translator is present."
She zipped her handbag tight.
"But after Director Chen goes back, you can use your own way to pass a signal to those who need to know."
She raised her eyes.
"The Saionji Group's interest in Pudong is far more than 520 mu."
Chen Zhiyuan stood up from his chair and pushed it back under the table.
"One last question." Standing by the table, he looked down at Satsuki, who was still seated. "If—I'm only saying if—the municipal government is interested in what you've said, how do you hope to proceed next?"
Satsuki stood up from the sofa. She was nearly twenty centimeters shorter than Chen Zhiyuan, and the angle at which she looked up at him was exactly the same as on the construction site and the embankment over the past two days.
But Chen Zhiyuan knew that the person standing before him right now was not the same wealthy Eldest Miss who had complained about the smell and noise, wanted to take photos, and insisted on eating cake over the past two days.
"We sign the B-07 contract first." Satsuki's voice was very soft. "The land price—thirty-two thousand per mu. Tomorrow, I will make Endo nod."
Thirty-two thousand.
It was seventy-eight percent higher than the eighteen thousand offered by the Japanese side, and thirty-six percent lower than the Chinese side's bottom line of fifty thousand.
This number fell right in the middle of both sides' battle lines, with an error margin of no more than two thousand dollars.
"In exchange," Satsuki slung her handbag over her right shoulder, "I need one thing to be written into the appendix of the contract."
Chen Zhiyuan waited.
"'The right of first negotiation for future commercial real estate development projects in the Pudong New Area.'"
Satsuki slowed her pace. Every word was pronounced with absolute clarity.
"Which specific plot it refers to, and when it will launch, does not need to be written in the contract. Just this one sentence is enough."
Chen Zhiyuan ran this sentence through his mind twice.
Right of first negotiation. Merely "negotiation."
Paper cost: Zero.
But on the day the Lujiazui plots were actually put up on the auction block, these words would be like a nail driven firmly into the table.
"I will take these words back with me," Chen Zhiyuan said.
He stepped aside and reached out to open the wooden door of the private room for Satsuki.
The rotation of the door shaft was stiff; the bronze hinges of the old western-style house, long out of repair, let out a low, hoarse groan.
The night wind poured in from the end of the corridor, carrying the lingering scent of sweet osmanthus and the dry aroma of crushed plane tree leaves.
Satsuki stepped over the threshold.
As one foot stepped onto the blue brick ground of the corridor, she paused.
She turned her head back.
The light spilled out from the private room, illuminating half of her face. The other half was hidden in the shadows of the corridor.
She smiled again.
It was a smile that was... very pure.
Chen Zhiyuan suddenly felt that this was her true face.
"Director Chen."
She said.
"You are the first person I've met in China who is worth speaking to in earnest."
Then she turned around, her brown ballet flats making light, tapping sounds on the blue bricks.
Fujita Tsuyoshi silently followed from the shadows of the corner, the two of them walking one after the other through the short corridor.
The black-lacquered wooden door closed behind them.
In the alley, the taillights of the Toyota Crown lit up. The low rumble of the engine rolled through the shade of the plane trees. The headlights flashed twice at the corner at the end of the alley, then disappeared.
Chen Zhiyuan stood in the courtyard.
Overhead, the golden osmanthus flowers were still falling. A tiny petal swirled down from a branch, landing on the shoulder of his jacket. He glanced down at it but did not brush it away.
He fished the pack of Hongtashan out of his pocket.
The flame of his lighter flickered.
Smoke rose, its scent diluted slightly by the sweetness of the osmanthus.
Leaning against the brick wall at the entrance of the corridor, he held the cigarette in his left hand and felt his inner jacket pocket with his right.
The stiff edge of the photo paper pressed against his chest.
Someone worth speaking to in earnest.
Translated, did those words mean—the previous two days had all been an act?
For two whole days, complaining about the smell, complaining about the noise, asking about the big ships, taking photos, flipping through the picture book, carrying the cake, leaving halfway through—every single action was part of a hand pushing them along.
And it had taken him a day and a half just to feel the outline of that hand.
Chen Zhiyuan smoked the cigarette down to the filter, stubbing it out against the brick surface at the base of the wall.