Chapter Fourteen: Opportunity Arrives (Part One)

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The Special Meeting on Supervising Fourth-Quarter Peak-Season Targets for All Branches of Songyang City’s Xingshang Bank was held as scheduled in the Golden Dome Auditorium of the Songyang Hotel.

To create a suitably grand atmosphere, President Wang Weixin personally ordered the general office to finish decorating the auditorium within two days: all the curtains and fluorescent tubes were to be replaced; the semicircular speaking desk on the platform had to be covered with a velvet tablecloth trimmed in gold thread; and precisely one hour before the meeting began, an extravagant floral arrangement was to be placed upon it.

In addition, every middle-ranking cadre was to have a newly purchased, high-grade enamel cup set before his or her seat, with premium black tea supplied uniformly. As for the other officials attending, each was to receive a disposable paper bag containing candies, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pastries, and the like.

At such instructions from the top leader, Kang Li, director of the general office, was practically dumbfounded. Hesitantly, she asked, “President, this isn’t an end-of-year celebration or an awards ceremony for advanced collectives and individuals. Once we do all this, we won’t get away with spending less than twenty or thirty thousand yuan!”

Wang Weixin’s face darkened at once. His finger nearly touched Kang Li’s forehead.

“Penny-pinching! Is it coming out of your own pocket?”

Kang Li seemed to have lost her senses and actually persisted.

“Then, after spending all this money on decorations, how can we have the nerve to ask the municipal government office to reimburse us? After the meeting, I can arrange for someone to remove all the superficial items, but the curtains and fluorescent tubes will have to be left behind for them for nothing…”

“Get out! If it weren’t for my sake, do you think they would have been willing to rent us such an important venue? And you dare approach it with such a narrow-minded attitude. With ideas as worthless as yours, I ought to dismiss you this very moment!”

Wang Weixin roared.

…

According to President Wang Weixin’s instructions at the preparatory meeting attended by the middle-ranking cadres of the branch headquarters, this conference had to bring out flavor, bring out atmosphere, bring out passion, bring out ideas, and bring out results.

Having learned her lesson two days earlier, Director Kang Li no longer dared ask the leaders any questions at the venue. Instead, she marked a conspicuous place in her notebook with a special notation:

“Five ‘Bring-Outs.’”

For this, she even sought the opinion of Vice President Bian Zecheng.

“Exactly what does ‘bring out flavor’ mean?”

“What do you think it means? Go look in the mirror and figure it out slowly! If you can’t even understand such an obvious principle, what are you doing as director of the general office? You might as well go to the logistics department, take a mop, and sweep floors.”

Bian Zecheng retorted harshly, without the slightest trace of kindness.

Kang Li’s cheeks flushed red, but she continued timidly.

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“Please, Vice President Bian! The other requirements aren’t difficult to understand. It’s just that… how am I supposed to know what kind of ‘flavor’ President Wang meant? How am I supposed to grasp such an abstruse idea when I’m drafting the materials?”

“What kind of flavor do you think it is? Your perfume, perhaps?! You really are a complete idiot! Let me think about it for you. Once I have an answer, I’ll call and tell you…”

Before Bian Zecheng could finish, Kang Li suddenly lowered her head, turned around, and slammed the door shut as she stormed out.

Bian Zecheng stared wide-eyed at her retreating figure, watching her hips sway from side to side. He swallowed audibly.

The implication that had slipped from Bian Zecheng’s mouth just now had not come from nowhere.

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival during Wang Weixin’s first year in office, he had ordered the city branch’s labor union to organize a bank-wide ballroom-dancing competition, requiring all members of the leadership team to take part.

Just as the music flowed melodiously, the dance floor was packed, and dancing partners clung to one another, the hall suddenly lost power for no apparent reason. Within a few minutes, however, the electricity was restored.

In that brief instant, Bian Zecheng saw Yin Sen and Kang Li hiding in a corner of the hall, embracing and kissing one another. The scene left many of those present extremely embarrassed.

At a drinking table one time, a drunken Yin Sen had publicly made fun of Bian Zecheng’s short, stumpy build. His pride wounded to the core, Bian Zecheng immediately went on the offensive and delivered a devastating counterattack.

“Don’t make me the butt of your jokes, buddy. The man in Director Kang’s household is a hero on the Songyang City Criminal Police Bureau’s anti-vice and anti-gang squad. He was my classmate in high school, too. So don’t push me too far. Be careful—I might get bored one day and make a phone call. Then my buddy will come over with an electric baton and sweep through everything in your pants!”

After that, the usually arrogant and overbearing Yin Sen was unfailingly deferential whenever he stood before Bian Zecheng.

…

The “Peak-Season Work Conference” of Songyang City’s Xingshang Bank was convened as scheduled.

In the past, ordinary professional meetings had generally been chaired by one of the two vice presidents, Bian Zecheng or Yin Sen. The opening remarks at such meetings were invariably the same: a deliberate emphasis on how important and timely the meeting was, and so on. Once the ritualistic preamble about how the wine had made three rounds and the dishes five had been duly delivered, Wang Weixin would stride onto the platform and give an important speech.

Unlike the hoarse voices of most men worn down by cigarettes and alcohol, Wang Weixin’s voice was genuinely unforgettable, resonant for days. At times deep and powerful, at times crisp as a cicada’s call, it possessed a remarkable range of tonal shifts, pauses, rises, and falls. Every member of the leadership team, Zhang Maolin included, admired him for it utterly.

Later, a rumor circulated within the bank that Wang Weixin had worked as an announcer at the county radio station when he was young, but had eventually been disciplined for misconduct involving sexual relations and had been forced to change careers under disgraceful circumstances.

Of course, that was merely a rumor, with no way to verify it.

Today, everyone noticed a major change in the venue.

Unlike before, Wang Weixin alone occupied the platform, while all the other members of the leadership team sat in perfect formation in the first row below.

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Directly in front of the speaker’s position stood an unusually round, oversized floral cushion, dazzlingly bright in color and exuding a powerful fragrance.

Yet in Zhang Maolin’s eyes, the arrangement’s shape was deeply unsettling.

No matter how closely he examined it, his subconscious kept telling him that it looked like a wreath toppled onto its side, stripped of the support that had held it upright. It was like suddenly looking up at the sky outdoors and noticing the shape of a cloud: the more one decided it resembled something, the more it began to look exactly like that thing.

Zhang Maolin did not dare continue examining it. Instead, he fixed his gaze on Wang Weixin’s enormous, fleshy, ball-shaped head.

Wang Weixin was dressed in a suit and tie, with a scarlet necktie. He had evidently just had his hair styled that morning; under the glaring ceiling lights, it gleamed with an almost mirrorlike sheen.

His face was wreathed in smiles, as though some enormous joy were circling in his heart and he could scarcely contain it.

The more exuberant Wang Weixin appeared onstage, the more unsettled Zhang Maolin became below.

Based on everything Zhang Maolin currently knew, he simply could not understand Wang Weixin’s present state. He could not help wondering to himself:

What does this mean? Given the current level of operations and management at Songyang City’s Xing­shang Bank, what achievement could possibly have made this soon-to-depart president so excited?

Damn you, Liu Dong! Tao Shouli! You made everything sound so magnificent, but look at the spectacle Wang Weixin is putting on now, reaching from heaven to earth. Does this look like a man about to get out of here?

Fine, fine! One should not meddle in affairs beyond one’s position. If this matter is not going to be launched, then to hell with it! I never had such greedy ambitions in the first place. I might as well retire to the second line as soon as possible, go home, and look after my grandchildren…