Taking Charge of the Family Businesses

Su Jin checked in at the estate in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

She sat by the window in the third-floor master bedroom. She had just bathed, and her hair was still wet. She wore a black silk La Perla robe, her bare feet resting on the carpet.

Outside the window was Los Angeles at night, the lights of countless homes spreading from the foot of the hills into the unseen distance. The Pacific Ocean lay dark and heavy in the night, with only the occasional flash of a ship's lights to remind you there was water there.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the screen and hovered by the window, wings folded, without flapping. His golden glow looked like a star someone had hung in the Los Angeles night, suspended in midair, never to go out.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Ding. Congratulations to the host on completing the 205th daily check-in. Today's check-in reward: a 1.7 percent stake in Tencent Holdings Limited, valued at approximately 7.3 billion US dollars.

The host has become a Tencent shareholder and holds voting rights on strategic decisions in its three major divisions: gaming, social media, and entertainment. The host has priority partnership access to resources on platforms under Tencent, including China Literature, Tencent Pictures, Tencent Games, WeChat, and QQ.

Su Jin looked at the number on her phone screen: 7.3 billion, followed by six zeros. She didn't count them. She turned the phone over and set it face down on the windowsill.

Little Golden Egg floated in front of her. "Host, aren't you happy?"

Su Jin looked out the window. Los Angeles at night spread out beneath her feet, palm trees standing one by one in silhouette under the streetlights, like a row of sentries who could not walk.

She said that being happy didn't necessarily mean she had to smile.

Little Golden Egg said nothing. He hovered there quietly, his golden glow growing very faint in the night, but he was still there.

The next morning, Su Jin stood in the dressing room, choosing clothes to wear for a Paris Aristocratic Family ad shoot.

She was going to Paris tomorrow for an ad as Paris Aristocratic Family's global ambassador. The contract had been signed last month, and the creative director, Demna, had written the creative script himself-drive a car, wear Paris Aristocratic Family, drive from Paris to the outskirts, and keep driving until dark. No dialogue, no plot, no story.

She didn't want to wear black, white, or gray. She didn't want those gentle colors and soft lines.

Her gaze fell on the rail at the very back of the dressing room. Hanging there were several pieces she had worn only once since buying them. When she bought them, she had thought, "I'll wear them someday," but "someday" had never come.

She reached out and took down the piece on the far left-a dark green Paris Aristocratic Family leather jacket. The green wasn't bright; it was the green found deep in a forest, where sunlight couldn't reach, stained for years by moss and rotting leaves.

The leather was soft lambskin, as thin as a sheet of paper, but once on, it neither wrinkled nor sagged, as though it had grown on her. The jacket had a stand-up collar, left unfastened and open to reveal a white T-shirt underneath.

For her lower half, she chose a matching black skirt. It wasn't so much a skirt as a single piece of thick black wool felt, hanging from her waist, with no tailoring and no finished edges, like a piece of fabric that had been cut out but not yet sewn into clothing.

The hem was uneven, reaching her ankles in some places and ending at her knees in others. The edges were raw and unbound, threads trailing from the fabric like a thin black mist.

On her feet was a pair of black Maison Margiela leather split-toe boots with chunky heels. The uppers had no decoration, only the signature split-toe seam.

Her hair hung loose, untied.

A pair of Acne Studios silver earrings hung from her earlobes, large and thin, like two pieces of white birch bark blown down by the wind.

She nodded once at herself in the mirror, then turned and walked out of the dressing room.

The car was that Maine Holly Bentley, parked in the garage, gleaming in the Los Angeles sunlight.

Dark green, not a bright green, but the color of holly leaves pressed beneath snow all winter night, a deep, heavy green with a touch of black at the edges.

Light poured through the garage skylight and fell on the body of the car, absorbed by the paint and then released in a softer, warmer way.

Su Jin opened the car door and got in. The interior was upholstered in light beige leather, and the seats were hand-stitched, every stitch evenly spaced, though a close look revealed the slightest differences in their size.

She put the car in gear and pressed the accelerator. The car eased out of the garage and turned onto a private road in Beverly Hills. The iron gate opened without a sound, and the Italian cypresses on either side of the drive swept past her window one by one, their trunks straight, their crowns slender, like two rows of silent sentries who had stood there for many years.

The Paris Aristocratic Family shoot crew was waiting for her in a desert east of Los Angeles.

It wasn't a studio or a set, but a real desert. The sand was golden yellow and hot from the sun. The distant mountains were dark brown, with a thin veil of purple haze over their peaks.

Demna stood beside a black SUV, wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, covering half his face and leaving only his chin and lips visible.

He saw Su Jin's car approach from the far end of the road. She parked beside the SUV and pushed open the door. Her split-toe boot landed in the sand, the heel sinking in. She pulled it free and took a step forward.

Demna looked at her without speaking, raised his camera, and pressed the shutter.

No lights, no reflectors, no assistant taking light readings. Only the desert, the car, and her.

She stood beside the car, her dark green leather jacket fluttering slightly in the desert wind, her black raw-edged skirt pressed against her legs. A fine layer of golden sand had settled on the uppers of her split-toe boots. Her eyes were hidden behind brown-tinted sunglasses, but there was the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth-not a smile, but something quieter than a smile, the kind of expression one wore when standing on high ground and looking into the distance.

Demna took more than ten pictures, lowered the camera, and said, "That's enough."

"Paris Aristocratic Family doesn't need you to pose. You stand there, and that is Paris Aristocratic Family."

He browsed through the photos he had just taken, stopped at one, and turned the screen toward her.

In the photo, she was getting out of the car, the door still open, one foot in the sand and the other still inside. Her hand rested on the door, and the wind had blown her hair across half her face, leaving only her eyes behind the sunglasses and that faint curve at the corner of her mouth visible.

He said, "This is the ad. No retouching, no color grading, no cropping."

Su Jin merely shrugged. Fashion was becoming less and less challenging to her, and she was starting to tire of it.

When she returned to the Su family's estate in Los Angeles, Su Heng was waiting for her at the entrance.

He wore a dark blue cashmere cardigan over a white shirt, no tie, and the top two buttons of his collar undone. In his hands was a thick stack of documents in dark blue covers, stamped in gold with the family crest: an eagle and a mountain.

He saw her step out of the car, and his gaze lingered on her for a moment-her dark green leather jacket, black raw-edged skirt, and split-toe boots still speckled with desert sand.

He nodded with a smile, didn't ask what ad she had been shooting, and handed her the stack of documents.

"These are the family businesses. Shipping, banking, and real estate. Shipping has 120 vessels: bulk carriers, container ships, and oil tankers. The fleet ranks among the top fifteen in the world, with ports in Rotterdam, Singapore, Shanghai, Los Angeles, and several places whose names she had never heard.

"The bank is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It isn't open to the public and serves only the family and businesses associated with the family. It manages tens of billions of US dollars in assets.

"The real estate is in Europe: castles, estates, vineyards-in Bordeaux, France; Tuscany, Italy; and Rioja, Spain. Every property has a history of several hundred years, every one is operating, and every one is making money."

She opened to the first page. It showed a photograph of a ship, enormous and gray, resting on the sea, the family crest of an eagle and a mountain painted on its hull.

The second page held an old black-and-white photograph of the bank's interior. The hall was tall, its columns were stone, and its counters were walnut. Several people in old-fashioned suits stood behind the counters, their expressions solemn, as though waiting for someone very important.

She turned another page. It showed an estate in Tuscany, with stone walls, a red roof, and a row of cypresses in front of the entrance. The trees were tall and slender, like a line of guards who could not walk.

Su Heng said that this was where Grandpa had lived as a child. Every summer, he went there for two months to pick olives and make wine. He wasn't going this year because his legs were bad. He wanted her to go.

Su Jin turned back to the photograph of the ship. Its gray hull rested on the blue sea, and the crest on its bow shone gold in the sunlight.

"I don't want this one. I want the next one. In my name."

Su Heng looked at the top of her head, smiled, and said, "All right."

The next one would be called "Jin."