Afternoon.
Tokyo International Airport, Japan.
After clearing customs and collecting their luggage, they saw two young men in the distance holding up a sign written in Chinese. They were there to receive the Investment Bureau delegation, probably junior staff the city had sent ahead to scout things out. A lot of people stood before them, many of them familiar faces—leaders from the Investment Bureaus of various counties and districts whom Dong Xuebin had seen during meetings at the Municipal Investment Bureau. They had actually been on the same flight, but Dong Xuebin, Luo Haiting, and the others had boarded later and sat near the front, so they had only met up now.
Dong Xuebin led Zhang Fan, Yu Rui, and the others over.
"Director Dong, why didn't we see you before boarding?"
"We got held up by something at customs."
"It's good that you caught the flight. All right, everyone's here now."
The man speaking to Dong Xuebin was around forty, dressed smartly in a suit whose fabric clearly wasn't cheap. Dong Xuebin had never spoken with him before. After all, he had only gone to the city for an Investment Conference once. He only knew that this was Pan Zhengyi, the Top Leader of the Nanshan District Investment Bureau.
The staff from the Investment Bureaus of Xiping District, Donghai District, and the other counties and districts had all arrived as well. There were quite a few people scattered around.
With so many people gathered, the atmosphere became rather chaotic.
Whether they came from districts or counties, the leaders of the dozen or so participating Investment Bureaus were mostly of equal rank. At most, district Investment Bureaus held a slightly higher political standing than county ones, but no one was markedly above anyone else. Without a designated leader, none of