Jinling.

In an office tower in the central business district, Jiang Meilin stood at the enormous floor-to-ceiling window of her office with a cup of coffee, looking out over the city lights along both banks of the Yangtze.

It was well past quitting time by now. A small number of people had stayed on to work late, but the office was still dead quiet.

The phone on her desk suddenly started jangling and broke the silence of the evening.

Jiang Meilin set the coffee down, glanced at the caller ID and picked up. A familiar voice came through right away.

"Hey, Meilin. Has the great Bank President Chen come to find you yet?"

The corner of Jiang Meilin's mouth turned up. She shook her head, smiling. "No. I doubt he has the nerve to come into the office looking for me."

"You're joking."

Yang Lin was sitting on a hotel balcony at the other end of the line, sea breeze on her face and the water in front of her, and she made a small clicking sound with her tongue. "He went to Jinling this time for you and nothing else."

Jiang Meilin knew Chen Hansong well. She answered with a laugh. "The most he'll do is wait for me outside the building. He doesn't have it in him to walk in here and find me."

"Want me to give him a push?"

"Don't." Jiang Meilin turned it down at once. "If he doesn't dare, then that's that."

Yang Lin sighed. "Bank President Chen really is hopeless. If he had half of Xiao Xu's emotional intelligence he'd have been standing in front of you by now."

"Enough about him. What about you? Where are you at the moment?"

"Gulangyu, in Xiamen."

"How long are you planning on staying out there?"

"Until I've had enough of it. I've covered a lot of ground these past weeks and seen a lot of country, and it's actually given me plenty of ideas. Once I'm back in Shanghai I want to sit down with Xu Ye about the Youwei company."

… Jiang Meilin had…