by Song Ying
“Leaders of the various work units, please stand in the second row.”
“All other guests, please find a place in line.”
The announcement echoed and lingered in the room, an unintended effect from the microphone.
Nie walked in to see rows of wreaths and a huge crowd.
A large portrait, framed in black silk, of Hu Guohao with an aggressive smile, hung in the center of the bier. On each side of the hall lines of funeral wreaths and flower baskets stretched all the way out the door. Fresh yellow daisies were the primary components of the wreaths, but some had a red flower or a white chrysanthemum in the middle, and all were adorned with white satin ribbons with the inscription ETERNAL REPOSE and the names or titles of offices that had sent them. The enormous display of daisies created a grand scene.
Hung high in the middle of the hall, the words PROFOUND GRIEF had been inscribed on a white horizontal scroll edged with yellow.
Nie looked around, but did not see Xiaochuan or any of his colleagues.
The government was well represented by high-ranking officials. The ranks of mourners also included bank presidents, real estate tycoons, and friends of the deceased. Altogether, more than two hundred guests stood in the hall facing Hu’s portrait while photojournalists and TV cameramen, armed with the tools of their trades, were crowded in the back. Camera lights flashed nonstop as video cameras turned slowly to capture the scene. Nie took out his Pentax 928, uncapped the lens, and joined in the actions of his colleagues.
The impassive voice of the MC continued:
“Please turn off your cell phones and be silent. The final viewing of Mr. Hu’s body will now begin.”
“Please observe a moment of silence.”
A dirge was played as mourners bowed their heads. Once that was done, the white-skirted MC stood at the microphone and, facing the mourners, read telegrams of condolence in an unhurried pace, filling the auditorium with the soft timbre of her soprano voice:
“Eternal Repose to Mr. Hu Guohao.”
“Unending Memories of CEO Hu Guohao.”
“Unimaginable Loss to Landmark Real Estate.”
Then it was time for the head of the company to give the memorial speech.
Deputy CEO Zhou Zhengxing, as the Landmark representative, spoke expansively of the late CEO. Zhu Mei-feng, dressed in black, was spotted standing in the front row, looking terribly distressed. Zhong Tao stood solemnly next to Zhou; also present were Ah-ying and several of those in the top management, all properly grave, with black satin flowers pinned to their chests.
Ah-ying lowered her head to observe another moment of silence, and when she looked up, tears sparkled in her eyes.
When the memorial speech was over, the mourners, accompanied by a soft dirge in the background, walked slowly to the bier to bid farewell to Hu; this was the climactic moment.
Hu’s body lay in a glass-topped coffin, surrounded by fresh flowers. His face looked different, despite the work by funeral home cosmeticians. Ah-ying stared down at him. Zhu Mei-feng stopped and looked at her late husband’s body, tears running down her face. Covering her quivering lips with a handkerchief, she sobbed quietly, presenting a sad and touching sight. When it was Zhou’s turn, he stood by the coffin quietly, bowed, and observed a moment of silence. One had to wonder what was going through his mind as he looked down at the body of the company head, his boss and his partner, but also a rival who had pillaged and impeded the progress of his enterprise, as well as his emotional enemy. He was followed by various government officials, who bowed before walking slowly away, stopping briefly to shake hands with the widow and offer condolences.
Then came his real estate peers, Wu Shi of the Jiayi Group, and Wanda’s CEO Lu. Standing side by side, both sadly said good-bye to a colleague who had been a formidable force in the realty business only days before. Hong Yiming was right behind them. He bowed deeply three times. Hu’s sudden death should have been considered a boon to a business rival like Hong, but Nie Feng sensed that Hong displayed more grief than might be expected.
Zhong Tao was next. Dressed in a white shirt, a black satin flower pinned to his chest, he maintained a dignified yet sorrowful look. He stopped in front of the body and bowed, under Ah-ying’s intense gaze. Everyone at Landmark knew that the man lying in the coffin had treated Zhong as his protégé. Once a rising star, a member of the younger generation of top management, Zhong’s future had been thrown into doubt with the death of his powerful backer. When he lowered his head to show respect, Ah-ying saw the muscles near his lips twitch; either he was trying to rein in his grief or there was evidence of a strange smile.
Zhong Tao and Hong Yiming’s eyes met when Zhong turned to leave. Hong nodded, but Zhong responded with a silent glance before looking off into space. The look on Zhong Tao’s face was hard to read, as if he had traveled to some illusory place.
* * *
“Ah—” He seemed to hear a scream of pain that slowly faded into a dark abyss, as if sucked into the underworld. The deathly silence was terrifying.
“Qiangzi—Qiangzi—!” A heart-rending cry echoed off the cliff.
* * *
Nie Feng noticed the strange expression in Zhong Tao’s eyes, but it escaped the attention of Hong Yiming, who extended his hand to Zhu Mei-feng reverently.
“Please accept my sincere condolences.”
“Thank you,” she said tearfully.
The memorial ended at eleven sharp.
Then something no one could have anticipated occurred. Just before the employees of the funeral home were about to send Hu’s body to be cremated, a yellow minivan came to a screeching halt outside the hall.
Two workers in yellow uniforms, wearing white gloves, jumped out of the back of the van, lifted down a gigantic, mysterious blue wreath, and carried it gingerly up the stone steps into the hall.
Everyone’s eyes were on them.
The shape of the wreath and the color of the flowers were unlike any of the others. Indigo petals with yellow stamens looked like tiny bells on a wind chime. The blue was so deep it was nearly purple, lending the wreath a weird beauty.
That quickly attracted the journalists, who turned their cameras on the wreath. An eerie wreath. Everyone stared wide-eyed, the name of the flowers unknown.
With a show of respect, the workers walked up and placed the wreath in front of Hu’s picture. One of them took out a delivery note and handed it to the MC to sign.
Now everyone had a clear view of the elegiac couplet: bold, black inscriptions on white satin ribbons top and bottom.
The top:
Lofty aspirations, wild ambitions, a player’s flirtations, all is illuminated
The bottom:
Highly aggressive, boldly corrosive, an imposing personality soars into the air
And across the middle the words:
A well-deserved death.
It caused a considerable stir, as murmuring erupted in the hall. The mourners looked at each other and facial expressions ran the gamut, as did the views on what they were seeing. The memorial was quickly getting out of hand.
Nie Feng calmly took a picture of the wreath while observing people’s reactions. It was a colossally disrespectful floral wreath meant to vent or to mock. Zhou Zhengxing stood still, refusing to react; Hong Yiming seemed out of sorts; Zhong Tao had a blank look. As Nie’s eyes swept the room, the police materialized, seemingly out of nowhere. Team Leader Cui, Xiaochuan, and Yao Li, all in street clothes, hustled the workers into a lounge. Obviously they had been in attendance all along. Xiaochuan exchanged a knowing look with Nie Feng before leaving.
* * *
Inside the lounge, Cui questioned the workers about the wreath, and learned that the order had been phoned in two days before by a woman who wanted it delivered to Hu Guohao’s memorial at exactly eleven o’clock that morning. She specified both the colors of the wreath and the contents of the elegies.
The yellow uniforms the men wore had HUAYI CEREMONIES logos on the
ir back. Huayi was a major Shenzhen flower and ceremony shop that specialized in arrangements for all sorts of celebrations and memorials, including flower baskets for special occasions and wreaths for funerals, with a guarantee of speedy deliveries.
“A woman?”
Zhu Mei-feng’s cold face flashed in front of Cui’s eyes: the frightful terror of an avenging woman!
“Didn’t it strike you people as strange?”
“Oh, no. We’ve had orders that were more bizarre than this. Our principle has always been to provide as many services to our customers as possible.”
“Which means you’ll do anything as long as there’s money to be made. How much did you charge for this wreath?”
“666 yuan, since it was a special order.”
“Wow!” Yao Li stuck out her tongue to show her surprise.
“How did she pay for it?”
“She sent a boy over with the money.”
“What did he look like?”
“Early teens, I’d say, maybe middle school.”
Apparently, the boy had not known the woman. He’d told them an “aunty” at a pay phone had given him ten yuan to deliver an envelope with the money.
“All right, you can go.”
Xiaochuan took down their names and phone numbers before opening the door for them, while Cui pondered what he’d just heard. A mysterious wreath, incomprehensible sentiments, specially ordered from a flower shop, delivered by a yellow van—at the specified time of eleven o’clock in the morning. What did it all mean? And who was the mystery woman?
— 5 —
The twenty-fourth floor of the Landmark Building.
Zhu Mei-feng walked into the CEO’s suite, tossed down her purse, and sat on the beige leather sofa in the waiting room.
Dressed in a purple-and-gray suit, and no necklace, she looked quite formal. She seemed calm and at peace, as if she’d recovered overnight from the sorrow and fatigue of the memorial; now her every move showed her to be a graceful, modern woman.
She looked around at Hu Guohao’s elaborate suite, which she’d only visited a few times. It was as spacious as the lobby of a five-star hotel, but for some reason, it always gave her an oppressive feeling. No one had had a chance to gather up Hu’s effects, so the office retained its original shape and look. The wooden crocodile in front of the desk and the trophies in the display case reflected light and instilled in her a sense of emptiness.
Ah-ying had told her that the office would stay the way it was for her to assume in the future. After Hu’s body vanished from the earth the day before, she became the head of the Landmark empire. She’d heard that Hu’s people were pinning their hopes on her, waiting for her to pick up where her late husband had left off and reclaim Landmark’s former glory. It was a natural course of action in their eyes, but she lacked Hu’s ambition. She had no interest in real estate, and was ill equipped to run the empire.
Ah-ying walked in.
“Big Sister Zhu,” she said cordially, “the Board members have all been notified. The meeting will begin at nine o’clock.”
“How about Mr. Zhou?”
“He just called. He’s on his way.”
“And Zhong Tao?”
“Yes, him, too.”
“I’d like to rest for a while. Could you get me a cup of coffee?”
“Of course.”
Ah-ying left, and quickly returned with a steaming cup of Nescafé. She handed the cup to Zhu and walked out and shut the door, but not before glancing at the trophies.
* * *
In the office of the executive assistant to the CEO, shortly before the Board meeting.
Zhong Tao opened the bottom drawer of his desk, where he kept a carefully wrapped blue velvet pouch the size of a pencil box. He held it in his hand and stroked it gently, as if he were caressing a throbbing heart.
Then he gently opened the pouch and removed an old harmonica that had been twisted out of shape in a fire. Both the rubber-and-wood frame and the mouthpiece were gone, leaving only the charred, rusty metal shell.
He shut his eyes and imagined he could hear the soft harmonica sounds.
Blue flames; heartrending screams.
He opened his eyes, which were now brimming with tears. “Real men do not easily shed tears, because their hearts have not been broken.” No one could know how he felt at the moment.
Someone knocked at the door; it was Ah-ying, to inform him of the meeting.
“Mr. Zhong, Big Sister Zhu would like you to be at the meeting.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He put the pouch back and locked the drawer. Then he opened the door and walked to the conference room, where the Board would decide Landmark’s fate, as well as that of everyone in top management. Prepared for the worst, Zhong Tao was ready to tender his resignation and go somewhere else.
With Hu Guohao gone, Landmark had lost its attraction, but he had one more thing he needed to do first.
A pot of red flowers sat in the center of the oval table, where the widow, Zhu Mei-feng, Deputy CEO Zhou Zhengxing, and other Board members were seated. They were looking through the documents before them. Ah-ying, in a black dress, her long hair tied in the back, sat to the side to take notes.
Zhong nodded at everyone before taking his seat.
Nine o’clock sharp, the meeting was called to order by Li Dongbao, a beefy man who was one of the VPs.
Hu Guohao had owned 54 percent of the company and Zhou Zhengxing 36 percent, while the remaining 10 percent was distributed among the senior management. The Board had seven members: Hu Guohao, Zhou Zhengxing, Li Dongbao (VP), Zhong Tao, Huang Lihong (CFO), Liu Jiali (Marketing Chief), and Xu Ming (Chief of Project Planning). Li Dongbao and Liu Jiali were considered Zhou’s people; Li was his old partner, a solid and reliable person. Zhong Tao, Huang Lihong and Xu Ming were Hu’s people. Ah-ying served as Board Secretary.
The first item on the agenda was to elect a new chairman of the board.
Since Hu had not left a will, the law stipulated that his shares and all his assets and personal property would go to Zhu Mei-feng. It seemed natural that she would take over as chairwoman of the board. The application to change the person legally responsible for the enterprise had been sent to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
The second item on the agenda: deciding on a new CEO, the seat of power.
Two views were offered: One, the “old chairman” faction, wanted Zhu Mei-feng to serve, just as Hu himself had done, making a sort of “trinity” of corporation person, chairman, and CEO.
But the “local” faction contended that the company had passed beyond the opening stage spearheaded by Hu Guohao; now that the company had entered an expansion stage, a modern style of management was required, which made it unsuitable for the chairman of the board to serve as CEO. Placing all the power in one person’s hands ran the risk of bad decision-making.
Since neither side was in a mood to concede, Zhou Zhengxing employed the knockout punch of his “killer strategy” by revealing the inside story—Landmark was deeply in debt.
Zhou asked the CFO to distribute the books to everyone present. Hu had overseen Landmark’s financial situation, requiring CFO Huang to report to him directly, regardless of the amount. Talk of how Landmark Realty was the trade leader, a powerful force, was simply an unfounded rumor. No one but Hu, not even senior management, had any idea how much Landmark was worth, how much it owed, or what its asset-liability ratio was. Based on Huang’s data, the competing bid for Tiandongba against Big East had been a pretense, a clever maneuver to obtain capital and land sales.
Huang read from a financial report he removed from a yellow folder. As of the twenty-fourth, the day of Hu Guohao’s death, Landmark owed 193,290,000 RMB on loans obtained from Guangdong banks, 7,1970,000 RMB for uncleared checks, 21,750,000 RMB for lines of credit, and 133,280,000 RMB for loan guarantee collateral. The total was 420,290,000 RMB. Deducting the 21,750,000 RMB for lines of credit that may or may
not be executed, Landmark’s debt to banks was a whopping 398,540,000 RMB.
“Landmark has assets of 460,000,000 and debts of nearly 400,000,000. Payment for the second half of the year is 85,650,000,” Huang said dryly and closed his folder.
All those numbers meant one thing: Hu Guohao had bled the company dry. The news shocked everyone in the room.
“What about the money to buy Tiandongba?”
“Land speculation. Mr. Hu’s plan was to use it to get more capital,” Huang said with an awkward look while purposefully avoiding Xu Ming’s and Zhong Tao’s eyes.
Zhong Tao thought he could sense the man’s intention to “defect.”
Zhu Mei-feng was unusually calm, not appearing embarrassed or displaying a strong reaction. She did not question the numbers given by Huang or try to defend the late CEO, as if all this had nothing to do with her or that she had expected this to be the case.
“I can revive Landmark,” Zhou promised solemnly before continuing to explain that he had made arrangements with friends in financial institutions in Pudong, Shanghai, to repay the 856,500,000-yuan loan using Landmark’s vacant parcel of land as collateral. It was a good deal for the company, killing two birds with one stone, as it were. Hu had not been dead for ten days, and Zhou had already made plans to repair the debilitating damage to the company, impressing everyone with his ability to act swiftly and effectively in a time of crisis.
When the votes were taken, Zhou was chosen to be CEO.
The Board also decided that Zhu Mei-feng would replace Hu as chairwoman of the board and legal representative. She made it clear that owing to her lack of familiarity with Landmark’s operations, she would be chairwoman in name only, while Zhou, the newly elected CEO, would be the real boss.
Applause greeted the announcements. Li Dongbao replaced Zhou as deputy CEO in charge of running the daily operations. In order to maintain a stable personnel structure, no changes were made in other positions. But to everyone’s surprise, the new CEO suggested that Zhong Tao be promoted to VP as Li’s replacement. The Board approved the promotion.
Ah-ying looked up from her notebook and quietly observed people’s faces. She was not the only one caught off guard by Zhou’s suggestion; Zhong himself had not anticipated it, and that was a perfect illustration of Zhou’s cleverness, which had less to do with magnanimity than with a move to balance the power structure. No one knew if he had talked it over with Zhu beforehand or if she had at least gotten a heads-up from him. It might have been a goodwill gesture to the “CEO faction” or it could have been Zhu’s condition for giving up the CEO position. But nothing seemed to matter now, since he had managed to stabilize the situation and make everyone happy.