Under the Hammer in Hong Kong and the Spotlight in Beijing

Hong Kong's spring auction came to a close on a Friday evening in March.

Su Jin did not attend in person. She sat in the study at 217 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, watching a live feed of the auction hall on the screen before her.

There were white-haired collectors, art advisers in suits and polished shoes, an auctioneer in white gloves, and Cheng Yan, seated by the aisle in the third row.

Shen Nian's Place of Return was lot seventeen, and it came up at 9:40 p.m.

The opening bid was eighteen million.

Su Jin leaned back in her chair, holding a cup of jasmine tea that had already gone cold, and watched the number on the screen jump from eighteen million to twenty-two million, then to twenty-six million, and then to twenty-eight million.

Three paddles were bidding: one belonged to a local Hong Kong collector, one to a New York gallery owner, and one to Cheng Yan.

When Cheng Yan raised his paddle, he did not look at the auctioneer. He watched the Hong Kong collector across the room, raising his paddle every time the other man raised his, unhurried, as though playing a game of chess whose moves he had already calculated.

At twenty-eight million, the New York gallery owner put down his paddle.

At thirty million, the Hong Kong collector hesitated for a long time. Only when the auctioneer began counting down did he raise his paddle again-thirty million five hundred thousand.

Cheng Yan did not hesitate. He raised his paddle straight to thirty-two million.

When the auctioneer's hammer fell, Su Jin set her teacup on the coffee table, picked up her phone, and sent Shen Nian a message: Thirty-two million.

On the screen, Cheng Yan was signing the confirmation of sale. When he finished, he looked up and nodded slightly in the direction of the camera. He knew she was watching.

Su Jin stayed in Boston a few more days for ME. Shen Nian's second piece was a sideboard, and it arrived from Milan just in time for a spring snowfall.

Shen Nian unpacked it outside the studio while Su Jin stood watching. Snowflakes landed on Shen Nian's shoulders, but she did not shake them off. Crouching on the ground, she cut through the packing straps with scissors and removed the foam panels one by one, moving as slowly as if she were dismantling a bomb that had not yet learned to speak.

The moment the cabinet emerged, the coffee cup in Su Jin's hand stopped in midair.

The cabinet body was made from a single piece of walnut, 1.2 meters wide, ninety centimeters tall, and forty centimeters deep. Its surface was unvarnished, coated only with a thin layer of wood wax oil. The pores of the wood were open, breathing, and a finger pressed against it could feel a slight give, like skin springing back.

The cabinet doors were not flat. Their entire surface was carved into rolling hills-not literal mountains, but mountains of lines. Curves of varying depths swept from the left side of the doors to the right, like waves left by wind across a wheat field, or the course of a mountain range photographed by satellite from high above.

The handle was brass, but treated to a matte, nearly black dark brown. Set into the walnut, it was almost impossible to find without looking closely. Only when fingers slipped inside did one discover a hollow, a cave just large enough for four fingers. Once a palm rested against it and body heat warmed the brass, a faint golden glow slowly emerged.

Su Jin set her coffee cup on a nearby shelf, crouched down, and knelt beside Shen Nian on the floor, looking at the cabinet.

Shen Nian said it was called Hill.

The hill in hillside. Not a great mountain or a towering peak, but the kind of hill that was neither high nor low, the kind one might walk past without noticing, but could sit against for a while after growing tired.

Su Jin reached out and touched the curve at the far left of the cabinet doors, slowly tracing it upward. The pad of her finger felt the wood's temperature change-not its actual temperature, but an illusion created by the flow of light and shadow over the turning curves. It was like a river flowing beneath her fingertip, fast in the shallows and slow in the depths, bending around a stone before returning to its original speed.

Two

In Beijing that March, the cherry blossoms at Yuyuantan were in bloom. When Su Jin stepped off her private plane, wind was blowing across the tarmac at Capital Airport. It was not cold, and carried a trace of earthy soil and the scent of flowers drifting from somewhere in the distance. She wore a light camel Loro Piana cashmere coat that reached her calves, its belt tied casually at the waist.

She spent three days in her study drawing a structural diagram, sorting through the shareholding relationships, control paths, and tax arrangements of all her assets. At the top, she wrote a name: SJ Group. She called Zhao Mingyuan. "Invite everyone you can to Beijing for a meeting."

SJ Group's first strategic meeting was held on the third day after Su Jin returned to China.

She did not use a conference room at Huace Starlight, or one in any office building. She invited everyone into her courtyard house.

In Beijing that March, the old pomegranate tree in the courtyard had yet to sprout leaves. Its bare branches stretched out in the sunlight, but the buds at their tips had already swollen, tiny and purplish red, like countless eyes that had yet to open.

She had placed a long black walnut table in the main room, a piece Shen Nian had arranged to have shipped from Milan. There was no tablecloth, only twelve white porcelain cups, a pot of tea, a stack of paper, and twelve pencils.

The guests took their seats one after another.

Zhao Mingyuan had summoned nearly every representative of the businesses under Su Jin. They knew today would be a day to witness history.

When Su Jin walked through the door of the main room, everyone fell silent at once.

She wore a long black wool dress by Rick Owens. A single piece of thick black wool, with a powerful drape, fell straight from her shoulders, without any tailoring or waist shaping. Only two exceptionally wide straps crossed her collarbones, crossed again over her back, and wound around her waist.

The hem was asymmetrical, shorter in front and longer behind, reaching her ankles in front and trailing on the floor behind. As she walked, the black fabric drew a broad, silent wake across the ground.

On her feet were black square-toed Bottega Veneta heels with trapezoidal heels. She walked with exceptional steadiness, each step seeming to nail itself to the floor.

Her hair was swept back and tied into a low bun with a brown silk ribbon, leaving her entire face exposed-the curve of her brow bones, the height of her cheekbones, the angle of her jaw, and the slight downward curve at the corners of her pressed lips.

She wore no makeup, but in the light pouring through the skylight of the main room, her face looked like a blade wiped clean and not yet sheathed.

She sat at the head of the long table. There was no computer or notebook before her, only a glass of water. The twelve people fell silent.

She swept her gaze around the room and said SJ Group was not a holding company.

A holding company managed money; SJ Group managed direction.

There was only one direction: using Chinese aesthetics to create things the whole world could understand.

It was not about exporting or promoting, not about "letting the world see China." It was about letting the world come over on its own.

Everything I'm doing now comes down to this one purpose, so I hope you'll be my strongest support.

After she finished speaking, the main room remained quiet for a long time.

The light from the skylight moved from east to west, casting parallel bars of golden light across the table.

Chairman Zhao of Poly took off his glasses, wiped the lenses, put them back on, and looked at Su Jin.

"I've lived sixty-three years, and this is the first time I've heard anyone do business like this."

Su Jin picked up her glass and took a sip. The water was cold, chilling her all the way from her throat to her stomach, but she did not frown.

The meeting lasted three hours.

Su Jin used no PowerPoint, no data sheets, and no screen-sharing equipment.

She simply sat there with a glass of cold water before her, turning through the stack of handwritten notes page by page.

She said that over the next three years, SJ Group would first do three things. The first was ME.

Three stores in three years: Beijing, Paris, and New York.

Each store had to be located next to a flagship store of a top luxury brand, to build name recognition.

The second was Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. In three years, it would achieve global distribution. Not a game made by Chinese people, but a game players around the world wanted to play. The stories were Chinese, but the emotions belonged to everyone.

The third was peachbloom glaze. In three years, they would successfully recreate it by firing. Not by firing peachbloom glaze in a laboratory, but in the kilns of Jingdezhen. They would bring MIT's materials science, thermodynamic simulations, and computer-vision comparisons to Jingdezhen, and sit down with the master artisans who had spent their lives firing porcelain.

They would fire that color, the one that "grows on its own from the copper in the kiln at high temperatures," the color whose tradition had been broken for over a hundred years and which no one remembered how to fire.

That is what I want to do.

By the time she finished, the daylight in the main room had changed from gold to orange-red, and the pomegranate tree's branches cast fine, dense shadows on the windows, like blood vessels.

Everyone merely took notes in silence, shaken beyond words.

Because they knew the boss they followed was a person of true ambition.

After the meeting, Su Jin sat alone in the main room.

The pencils and paper cups were still scattered across the long table. The sunlight had retreated from the skylight, leaving only a small patch of orange-red light on the wall, growing dimmer.

She sat at the head of the long black walnut table, the glass of cold water before her still unfinished. She lowered her head and looked at the ring of water for a while, then looked up. "System Store."

Little Golden Egg peeked out from behind her shoulder and hovered above the long table, his golden glow especially warm in the twilight.

His wings did not flutter. They spread out quietly, like a hummingbird suspended in midair without making a sound.

[Host, you finally remembered this system's store. This system thought you were saving your points so they could have babies.]

Su Jin did not respond to his joke.

"I want to buy three people: a PR professional, an operations director from the luxury goods industry, and a glaze expert from Jingdezhen.

"The PR professional needs to be able to handle international crises-not domestic ones, international ones.

"The luxury goods operations director needs to understand store locations, visual merchandising, and VIP client management, and know how to open a store next to Hermès and bring Hermès customers inside.

"The glaze expert from Jingdezhen needs to understand peachbloom glaze. Not the kind of understanding learned from books, but the kind the hands know. The kind of understanding that comes from firing kilns for a lifetime, so that one touch of a glaze with closed eyes tells them exactly how many degrees the kiln temperature was off."

She paused and tapped her finger lightly on the table. "Do I have enough points?"

Little Golden Egg spun once in the air, as though leafing through an invisible ledger. "Enough. But buying these three people will bring your points balance to zero. Are you sure?"

Su Jin nodded. "I'm sure. People are more important than things. Things depreciate; people don't."

Little Golden Egg hovered in front of her, his golden light growing a little brighter in the twilight, like a lamp turned up. "All right. The three have been added to the recruitment list. The system will automatically match, screen, and contact them. They are expected to start within two weeks."

Su Jin nodded without speaking.

She leaned back in her chair, watching the sky outside the window turn from orange-red to deep purple, then from deep purple to navy blue.

The pomegranate tree's branches grew darker and finer in the twilight, like a charcoal drawing being erased.

She suddenly remembered something. "Does the store sell skills?"

Little Golden Egg spun around again. "Yes. The skill category has basic, intermediate, advanced, and top-level skills. What would you like to buy?"

Su Jin thought for a moment. "Top-Level Negotiation Skills-the kind where I sit there without saying a word and the other side talks itself into a breakdown."

Little Golden Egg froze for a moment. His wings fluttered twice, then folded back. "Yes. Top-Level Negotiation Skills, three thousand points. Host, your points balance is already zero after buying the three people-"

"Exchange my allowance for them," Su Jin interrupted. "I haven't used today's spending allowance yet. Can I exchange it for points?"

Little Golden Egg hovered motionless in midair, like a satellite stuck in orbit. His light flickered twice, then twice more, like a processor performing a complex calculation. "Let this system check the rules... Yes. Ten million yuan for one hundred points. Three thousand points will cost three hundred million. Host, are you sure? Three hundred million yuan for a negotiation skill. Do you know how many things three hundred million can buy?"

The corner of Su Jin's mouth curved. "It can buy a negotiation that can't be won. That's enough. Exchange it."

Little Golden Egg said nothing. His light changed from warm gold to cold white, then back to warm gold, like a person taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.

[Exchange complete. Top-Level Negotiation Skills injected. Host, you can now sit across any negotiating table, say nothing, and let the other side talk itself into a breakdown. This system advises you not to abuse this skill. Using it to bully people will shorten your life.]

Su Jin stood, picked up the glass of cold water, and drank the last sip. Traces of water droplets remained on its surface, one after another, like a letter whose writing had been wiped away, but which had not yet dried completely.

She set the glass on the table, turned, and walked out of the main room.

The pomegranate tree in the courtyard swayed gently in the night breeze. The purplish-red buds at the tips of its branches were still tightly closed, gleaming waxily in the moonlight.

She passed through the ornamental gate, left the courtyard house, climbed into the driver's seat, and started the engine.

The Yunnan camellia-white Bentley waited quietly for her in the hutong.

She put it in gear, stepped on the accelerator, and drove out of the hutong into the traffic on East Third Ring Road.

She had been under too much pressure today. She was going shopping to unwind.

Just then, Su Jin's phone vibrated on the seat.

She picked it up. It was a screenshot of messages between her stylist and someone else, but the other party's number had the suffix FR, France.

She opened it.

The message was written in French, but she could read it.

"Hello, I'm the global brand director of Roger Vivier. We've been following Ms. Su for a long time. The silver strappy sandals she wore on the Berlin red carpet were from Roger Vivier's Très Vivier collection. She walked three hundred meters of red carpet in them, stood before two thousand people for eight minutes, and turned countless times beneath the flashes. When our designer saw the photographs, the designer said, 'These shoes have finally found the person they were waiting for.'

"We would like to invite her to become Roger Vivier's global brand ambassador. If Ms. Su is interested, we can meet in Paris. Any time, any place. We await your reply."

After reading the message, Su Jin put her phone on the front passenger seat.

Little Golden Egg floated over the dashboard and hovered above the phone screen, his golden light illuminating the French text.

He finished reading and floated back beside Su Jin. His wings fluttered twice, folded back, then fluttered twice more, like someone who wanted to scream but dared not, covering his mouth while a little sound he could not suppress escaped between his fingers.

[Host! Roger Vivier! Global brand ambassador! Not China, not the Asia-Pacific region-the whole world! Do you know who Roger Vivier's last global brand ambassador was? Nobody. They've never had a global brand ambassador. You're the first!]

Su Jin did not answer. She picked up her phone from the passenger seat, glanced at the message, then locked the screen and slipped it into her pocket.

Little Golden Egg grew anxious and flew around her once, then again.

[Host! Aren't you going to reply?]

Su Jin started the engine, put the car in gear, and stepped on the accelerator. The car pulled away from the roadside at Liangmaqiao and joined the traffic on East Third Ring Road.

She held the steering wheel with one hand and rested the other against the car window, her fingers pressed to her temple.

The night wind streamed through the gap in the window, lifting a few loose strands of hair at her temple. "There's no rush," she said. "Let them wait. They've waited so many years for a brand ambassador; a few more days won't matter."

Little Golden Egg floated above the passenger seat, curling himself into a tiny ball. His golden light flickered in the dashboard's cold glow, like someone laughing secretly under a blanket.