Shen Zhiyi is that Zhao Chen has been staying in the office longer and longer late at night lately,
I noticed it in the fact that I talked less and less, and even went for a walk by the river on weekends absent-mindedly.
She didn't ask him what happened--
From Law School moot court to the Henglong Legal Department,
She knows better than anyone that Zhao Chen doesn't like to be questioned repeatedly when faced with pressure.
He always thinks things through before speaking. Before he thinks things through, anyone's questioning is just noise.
Friday She didn't leave after get off work,
Instead, Legal Department checked the application analysis of the force majeure clause explained by Zhang Qingxue one by one.
I signed and filed it, then went to the tea room to make a cup of hot Black Tea, and knocked on the door of Zhao Chen's office.
He was sitting at his desk when he opened the door. Bloomberg Terminal in front of him was dark.
But there were several A4 sheets of paper spread out on the table, each of which was covered with dense timelines and annotations.
She recognized one of them--
That was the timeline he drew when he was alone in this office last night breaking down all the major decisions he made in the past few years.
Next to each battle, two colors of pens were used to mark "What the prophet's memory told me" and "What I judged at the time" respectively.
I wrote very hard, and the pencil tip broke off in some places and was sharpened again.
"I guess you don't plan to go back tonight."
She put Black Tea in his hand and sat down on the sofa.
Not face to face, but slightly sideways to him--
This position is her most accustomed sitting position when she is the opponent's advocate in court.
It will not give the other party a sense of oppression, and you can observe subtle changes in the other party's expression at any time.
Zhao Chen glanced at the cup of Black Tea, picked it up and took a sip.
"Zhiyi, you said that when you were doing non-litigation business at a law firm,
The biggest fear is not that the terms are written incorrectly and are returned by the partners.
One day I suddenly found out that the judicial interpretation you cited was annulled by Supreme People's Court.
You told me at the time that it felt like you were standing in court,
I hold an abandoned law in my hand, but I don't know when it became invalid.
This is probably how I feel now.
I used to think I could see the direction of the river, but now there is an extra stone in the river that I don't know where it came from.
That rock could change the direction of all the water, and I don't know how to recalculate it."
He put the teacup on the table and his eyes fell on the timelines,
"If the future is unknown, how can I support the tens of billions of Henglong?"
Shen Zhiyi did not answer immediately.
She dimmed the floor lamp next to the sofa so that the only light in the office was the desk lamp above the desk.
Zhao Chen becomes more nervous in an environment that is too bright.
"You know what? You've never been the kind of person who maintains his authority by refusing to admit his mistakes.
Every time you are pushed into a corner, your first reaction is not to defend.
It is to break down the problem into its smallest units and solve them one by one.
It was like this at Short Selling Henglong Holdings, it was like this at Tesla 178, and it is like this with this stone now."
She pushed the tea cup towards him,
"You don't need to rely on prophets to support Henglong, you rely on yourself--
Rely on your meticulousness to counter Contingency Plan by deducing one by one on Board of Directors before Short Selling Henglong Holdings.
Rely on you to repeatedly ask yourself at every stage high point of Bitcoin whether you have the restraint to reach that line.
Rely on your courage to spend all the last ammunition after dismantling the pledge clauses of the four investment banks one by one on the afternoon of 178.
These are not things that any prophet can give you. These are your own.
The map gets old, but your judgment doesn't."
Zhao Chen was silent for a long time.
The steel cable Chaotianmen Bridge outside the window shines silvery white in the night, and is reflected on the river surface as it breaks and gathers again.
He remembered that Shen Zhiyi unfolded the hand-drawn picture K-line Chart to show him when he took a walk by the river last time--
The edges of the paper were frayed, and the creases were white. She drew a heavy circle at the bottom of 178 with a red pen.
She said at the time that she had drawn this picture a long time ago, and she had drawn this circle at the bottom of the deepest valley.
Every time I hear his calm tone on the phone, I know that 178 can still hold on.
Later, on the day when the stock price rebounded from 178, he said "it's not broken", and she put a tick next to the circle.
At this moment, he looked at the timeline on the table that dismantled the decision-making logic.
Suddenly he realized that she had guarded 178 for him a long time ago.
This timeline and that K-line Chart are completely overlapping at some level:
In her own way, she helped him record every step he took over the years.
"You said you were afraid of the unknown future."
Shen Zhiyi took out the pillows on the sofa and put them behind her,
This action suddenly switched her tone from a debater to a more relaxed state.
"But did you know that Legal Department has an unwritten rule?
Aunt Zhang requires us to add a sentence in the risk warning column of each contract--
'The legal environment on which this contract is based may change due to force majeure events.
Contracting parties need to commit to renegotiating the terms in good faith after changes occur.'"
"She learned this from Lin Shicheng a long time ago.
When doing cross-border compliance at US Stocks, the legal environment may change at any time due to emergencies.
Instead of pretending in the contract that all variables are static,
It is better to agree on the dynamic adjustment mechanism in advance.
What you're thinking as you sit here alone tonight, without forewarning,
How to support these tens of billions of dollars and the livelihood of thousands of people.
But the most important thing you should do is not predict all variables - you have already done what you should do.
You gave Henglong a system to renegotiate all terms after a force majeure event.
You're already doing this."
She stood up and walked to him, picked up the A4 paper with the timeline filled with it, and folded it.
Put it in the drawer at the corner of his desk dedicated to important documents.
Then she turned around and looked down at him sitting on the chair slightly.
"I am your comrade-in-arms.
Let me tell you what your comrades should do--
A comrade is not someone who stands next to you and applauds after you win.
He was the one who redrawn the map with you after you lost it."
Zhao Chen raised his head and looked at her. The light from the desk lamp shone from the side.
Casting half light and half dark outlines on her face.
She stood before him in exactly the same manner as when she had refuted him in the mock court--
His back was straight, his chin was slightly raised, and his eyes showed a determination that was never afraid to look directly at his opponent.
He reached out and took her hand that was hanging on the edge of the table.
Her fingers were a little cold, probably from staying in an air-conditioned room for too long, but her grip was firm.
"Thank you." he said.
"No need to thank me. You stayed up late for so long. Go back to bed early tonight."
Shen Zhiyi curled up the corners of his mouth, took out the hand held by him, picked up the bag on the sofa,
He took away the already cold cup of Black Tea on his table and paused when he walked to the door without looking back.
"By the way. You said there was an extra stone in the river.
But you have walked in the river for so long, and you have stepped on more stones than anyone else.
In the future, when you don't know where to go, just count the stones under your feet."
She gently placed the empty cup on the small coffee table in the porch, turned up the temperature of the air conditioner when she went out, and closed the door silently.
The footsteps in the corridor gradually faded away, and the office became quiet again.
Zhao Chen leaned on the back of the chair, picked up Zisha Pot and poured the last cup of tea tonight.
The tea was still hot, and the circle of tea stains on the inside of the pot lid glowed warmly under the desk lamp.
He suddenly remembered something Su Wantang said to him in this office a long time ago -
"No matter how far you go, I will keep an eye on you from behind."