Chapter 173: Showdown in the boardroom
The Anlixin Group Building stood in the CBD of central Shanghai. From the outside, it looked very much like a great ship standing upright and thrusting into the sky, the curve of its bow plunging straight down, its outer edges sharp as a blade. With only a scattering of lights at night, its exterior hardly dazzled in Shanghai, a city that never slept, but none of Shanghai's elite with any reputation or standing would underestimate the influence of the equally low-profile company it represented.
In fact, the slender building also had a powerful aggressiveness to it. Overlooking the eastern estuary, it exuded a faint but profound grandeur.
When the building was first constructed, the editor-in-chief of a well-known financial publication had joked, "This building is just like its owner: equally somber, imposing, and sharp."
That sharpness also intimidated the white-collar workers and high earners who occasionally looked up at it while taking a break at a nearby Starbucks or dining in an expensive restaurant, creating a sense of something unreachable and overbearing in their minds. This city had never lacked powerful figures who could turn the world upside down, nor had it ever lacked the anonymous masses who gazed up at them.
In a bright, spacious room on the top floor of this building overlooking the city, Zhan Hua sat in a swiveling executive chair, feeling his entire body sink into the adjustable molded chair that fitted him with perfect ergonomics. Facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, he had the bearing of a king.
Behind him stood several Anlixin assistants and investment managers, three men and two women, clearly leading figures at Anlixin Investment. At first glance, each seemed unremarkable, but their eyes held the keen, cutting edge of long immersion in the capital markets. A