Chapter 97

Before Lu Zheng headed to the Wuzhou Grand Hotel for the banquet, he had already gained a general understanding of the Mitsubishi Bank's recent business activities in the country. As early as August 1972, before the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations, a delegation led by the president of Mitsubishi Bank visited China, and this visit became a pioneer in promoting the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations.

In 1979, the head office of Mitsubishi Bank established a specialized department for China—the China Office. In 1982, the Beijing Representative Office was set up. Subsequently, representative offices were established in Shanghai and Guangzhou. At the beginning of this year, the Shanghai Representative Office was upgraded to a branch.

Originally, Mitsubishi Bank's next goal in China was to set up an office in Shenzhen, but it suddenly changed its strategy. The applications for offices in Shenzhen and Wushan were initiated simultaneously and approved at the same time.

In the submitted materials, Lu Zheng also saw the list of five representatives: Chief Representative Yamamoto Taro, Representative Kawanishi Juniko, and three deputy representatives, all of whom were Japanese.

These five representatives and deputy representatives formed the management team of the Wushan Representative Office of Mitsubishi Bank. As for the other Japanese staff and Chinese employees, they did not need to be listed in the application materials.

Foreign financial institutions' representative offices in China are not allowed to engage directly in business activities. Their main task, in name, is to represent the parent company and communicate with the Chinese government and regulatory authorities, gather and research information on the domestic market, and support the parent company's business activities in China.

In reality, almost all representative offices participate in market promotion, customer resource development, and assist the parent company in operating specific business activities.

The Wushan Representative Office of Mitsubishi Bank should also follow this model, right?

Lu Zheng pondered this as the car drove into the parking lot.

The parking lot was a small square paved with red bricks on the east side of the Wuzhou Grand Hotel. Next to the parking lot were several residential buildings. Lu Zheng parked the car and whistled leisurely as he walked out. Suddenly, a disaster struck. A black shadow fell from the sky, and when Lu Zheng caught a glimpse of it, it was almost directly above his head. In a hurry, Lu Zheng quickly jumped to the side. Thanks to his quick reflexes and superior body coordination, he narrowly avoided it.

"Thud," the black plastic bag hit the ground and broke, releasing a foul odor. A few drops of yellowish污水 splashed onto Lu Zheng's gray Lenin suit. The usually clean and tidy Lu Zheng felt nauseous and squatted down, retching for a while. Fortunately, he didn't vomit anything.

The habit of being clean and tidy was formed in his later life but carried over. Thinking about it, he had only been off the battlefield for two years and shouldn't be so fussy. On the battlefield, sleeping next to stinky corpses was a common occurrence.

Behind him, a car horn sounded. Lu Zheng slowly got up and moved aside, then saw the black plastic bag in front of the Nissan car. Lu Zheng wanted to pick it up and throw it in the trash, but seeing the bag splattered with disgusting black and yellow liquid, he hesitated.

At this moment, the Nissan car door was gently pushed open, and Lu Zheng's eyes lit up. A beautiful woman in a light blue business suit got out of the driver's seat. The fabric felt soft and high-quality, shimmering in the sunlight. The light blue suit looked particularly stylish, paired with gemstone blue crystal high heels that accentuated her white, shapely legs, giving a sense of elegance and grace.

Her features were extremely delicate, with willow-like eyebrows and star-like eyes. Her face was as smooth and white as condensed milk. Her tall and slender figure, accentuated by the high heels, made her look even more graceful. The tight-fitting fabric highlighted her full chest and alluring hips. The slit in the skirt revealed her long, elegant legs with each step, perfectly showcasing the sexiness, toughness, and professionalism of a white-collar beauty.

"Sir, I'm sorry, why did you throw garbage on the ground?!" The white-collar beauty frowned slightly, but her expression was cute. Her tone was a bit stiff, but her voice was very pleasant.

Although her words were polite, Lu Zheng, who had seen many people, immediately sensed the assertiveness of a strong woman. At the very least, this white-collar beauty was likely a serious and no-nonsense person in the office, capable of making a room full of male colleagues fall silent with a single word. She was the type who wouldn't joke around and treated everything seriously, making her a figure that male colleagues admired but kept their distance from.

"The garbage wasn't thrown by me." Lu Zheng originally wanted to say it was thrown from one of the windows of the residential buildings, but he thought it wasn't necessary to explain so much.

Lu Zheng was about to go pick up the garbage, but the white-collar beauty had already walked over, using a tissue to pick up the garbage bag and walked over a hundred meters to the trash can to throw it away.

Lu Zheng stood aside and waited for her. When she returned, he approached her and gestured, "Miss, can I borrow some tissues?" He pointed to the yellow stains on his new Lenin suit.

Lu Zheng gestured because he sensed that the white-collar beauty's Mandarin was a bit stiff, and her facial features were slightly different from those of Han Chinese, suggesting she might be a foreigner or from a minority group.

The white-collar beauty blinked her delicate eyelashes and looked at Lu Zheng in surprise for a while. Finally, she took a pack of tissues from her small red bag and handed it to Lu Zheng, muttering something.

Lu Zheng recognized it as Japanese but couldn't understand what it meant.

Fortunately, he didn't understand, or he might have lost his temper. The white-collar beauty had muttered, "Unclean Chinese!"

Lu Zheng wiped the stains on his clothes repeatedly. When he heard the sound of high heels, the Japanese beauty had already parked her car and walked out. Lu Zheng looked at his clothes and felt they were almost clean.

Lu Zheng wanted to thank the Japanese beauty, but seeing her cold expression as she passed by, he held back his words.

The direction the Japanese beauty was heading was also to the Wuzhou Grand Hotel. Thus, the two of them walked one after the other through the stone path lined with cypress and pine trees, up the hotel steps, and into the lobby.

Even in the elevator, the Japanese beauty pressed the button for the 11th floor, the top floor where the representatives of the Mitsubishi Bank office were staying. The gathering today was a private event, held in the dining room of the luxury suite where Yamamoto Taro was staying. It was said that one of the deputy representatives of the Japanese office was an excellent cook, and he would be preparing the dishes for today.

Seeing that the white-collar beauty was also going to the 11th floor, Lu Zheng didn't need to press the button again. He just pondered whether she might also be an employee of Mitsubishi Bank.

Lu Zheng thought about the information on the five Japanese people. Chen San Shui had a good set of skills and quickly befriended the glasses-wearing interpreter. However, the Japanese were very strict and tight-lipped, rarely discussing personal matters with each other. Despite following them for over a month, the interpreter knew almost nothing about their personal lives.

However, Chen San Shui did manage to gather some general information. For employees of the head office of Mitsubishi Bank, coming to China was a tough assignment, similar to a city worker being suddenly assigned to a poor rural village. Therefore, the head office usually sent employees to China under strict orders, offering them generous conditions and high subsidies. Even so, many employees felt as if they were facing the end of the world and some even resigned to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

However, one of the employees of the Wushan Representative Office of Mitsubishi Bank had voluntarily applied to come to China. This was the female representative, Kawanishi Juniko, who was the second-in-command of the Wushan Representative Office.

The two Japanese deputy representatives had discussed Kawanishi Juniko while drunk, and the interpreter had heard everything.

The two Japanese deputy representatives seemed to look down on Kawanishi Juniko in their conversation, as she came from a poor family. Although she was a high-achieving graduate of Tokyo University, it was already a significant achievement for her to join Mitsubishi Bank, which had greatly changed her fate.

If she had followed a normal career path, her chances of further promotion within the head office of Mitsubishi Bank would have been very slim. Japanese society was heavily patriarchal, and this was even more pronounced in corporate life, where almost all executives were male.

By coming to China, Kawanishi Juniko took the second step in changing her fate. She had studied Chinese in university and used this as an advantage to apply for a position in China. After an interview with the executives of the head office of Mitsubishi Bank, they were very satisfied with her abilities and appointed her as the representative of the Wushan Representative Office. At the age of 23, Kawanishi Juniko had achieved a small but significant feat.

Lu Zheng pondered the information about this slightly more familiar Japanese white-collar woman and glanced at the light blue, elegant back of the woman in front of him in the elevator. Could she be Kawanishi Juniko?

Lu Zheng didn't notice the unease on the white-collar beauty's face when he didn't press the elevator button. Now, she was occasionally glancing at him with the corner of her eye, and when she noticed Lu Zheng looking at her back, her beautiful eyes showed panic.

With the "ding" of the elevator, the doors opened floor by floor, and the number of people in the elevator gradually decreased.

After the 9th floor, the last guest left, leaving only Lu Zheng and the white-collar beauty in the elevator.

The white-collar beauty's hand, gripping the strap of her small red bag, was white with tension.

Finally, the elevator stopped at the 11th floor, and the doors slowly opened.

The white-collar beauty quickly walked out, her high heels clicking rapidly. Lu Zheng followed and saw the signs for the men's and women's restrooms at the corner. He decided to go to the restroom to clean the stains on his clothes with water, as using only tissues was not enough.

The white-collar beauty walked in front of Lu Zheng, her steps getting faster and faster, and then she suddenly rushed into the restroom.

Lu Zheng was stunned because the sign indicated that the Japanese beauty had entered the men's restroom.

Lu Zheng hesitated for a moment and didn't enter. There were few guests on this floor, and no one was inside, or there would have been screams already.

But after waiting for a while, the woman still hadn't come out, and Lu Zheng became worried. He coughed and called out, "Miss, Miss? Are you okay?"

There was no response from the restroom.

Lu Zheng raised his voice and called out again, but there was still no response. Looking around, he saw no female guests or staff. After hesitating, he knocked on the door and said, "Miss, are you okay? I'm coming in. If you're okay, you should understand and say something."

Thinking about how quickly the girl had run in, perhaps she had acute gastroenteritis or appendicitis, which could be life-threatening.

There was still no response from the restroom. Lu Zheng had to push open the door, intending to call out in the outer area and, if necessary, go inside to see what had happened.

However, as soon as he pushed open the door, a black shadow came flying at him. Instinctively, he grabbed it—it was a mop. Then, he heard the woman scream, "Pervert! Catch the pervert! Catch the pervert!"

Stunned, Lu Zheng felt a hard blow to his forehead from the edge of a hard leather bag, causing a sharp, burning pain.

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**End of Chapter**